DitF – The Rising Jian
by Birne3000
Summary: After the battle at the Gran Crevasse, Hiro has to cope with all the memories, that are still coming back to him bit for bit now. And while doing so, he finds a darker side of his own consciousness awakening inside of him. Fractures between the Franxx-Pilots and APE are beginning to show themselfes. And what is it that the three most powerfull members of APE are meanwhile planning?
1. Aftermath

**Hello there, first off I want to thank you for being interested in my take on an alternative ending for Darling in the Franxx!**

 **What you are about to commence to read is probably still riddled with grammatical mistakes and may sound odd to a native english speaker at times, but I promise I did my best to smooth it out as good as I could to make it enjoyable. Nonetheless I would highly appreaciate it if you would leave me not only your opinion on story and characters, but also if you would be so kindly as to hint at the gravest mistakes I may have made. Thank you in advance!**

 **Now to the actual story:**

 **Our journey begins after the end of episode 15 in the anime. The battle at the Gran Crevasse is fought and won, but the price of victory was paid in huge amounts of human blood. And while the Parasites on the field are still doing their bloody work and the Vice Chairman of APE is working on behalf of Papa behind enemy lines, Hiro and Zero Two have to solve problems of their very own. Problems regarding their erased memories.**

* * *

Hours had passed, since the Gran Crevasse had finally given in and its defenses had been reduced to piles of rubble.

In the devastated wasteland, that was the battlefield on which the FRANXX-Pilots had risked their lives, was silence. Mountains of fallen Klaxosaurs were lying in a ring of dead bodies around the fortress's outer walls, which were still standing, even after the tremendous power that Strelizia and the Nines had unleashed on it.

Although at least some cracks were to be seen, where the combined power of the most elite FRANXXs did split them open from above.

Now, there were guard posts and patrols deployed at each and every one of those openings into the dark interior of Gran Crevasse. Some rumors between the surviving elements of the FRANXX-Formations were suggesting, that earlier an APE transport ship had been seen entering the inner ring. But no one really cared at this point.

Not a single Plantation had its units at full strength. Most of them didn't even have half of their previous fighting capacity. Between all the fallen monsters there were dozens of fallen FRANXX units too. Their pilots were either still lying dead all over the place, blasted to pieces, or dying in this very instant.

Not a single one of all the regular FRANXX-Pilots was cheering or showed any other sign of relief in face of this pyrrhic victory.

The irregulars of Plantation 13 on the other hand had been ordered back to the remnants of their devastated home and were believed to have - as the only deployed fighting force besides the Nines Special Forces - not lost a single pilot in the fight.

Some had put it down as pure luck. Others said it had to do with their superior FRANXX-Models. One way or the other, at the end of the day everyone on the field had heard of Plantation 13's squad of so called "heroes", who had fought their way to the entrance of the Gran Crevasse. And of Strelizia, who had single handedly destroyed an enemy Super-Lehmann-Class Klaxosaur, before uniting with the Nines and destroying the dome above the enemy fortress, resulting in retreat of all Klaxosaurs on the battlefield.

In the eyes of the common pilot this was nothing short of a miracle.

Now, after witnessing the execution of Protocol 32 by Code 090 and his fellow pilots of Plantation 26, there was a certain expectation within the other units, that the 13er's would also be send to their deaths or at least split up to units who had taken a higher toll then others. Some even suggested to send them into the fortress itself, to secure the inner parts of it.

Nearly three hours after the battle had ended and the last shot was fired, the APE-Members, which made up the political cores of all the Plantations still standing, gathered in Plantation 106, which came to be the one furthest away from the still menacing walls of the Gran Crevasse. They spoke long and in great detail of the great victory, that has been accomplished, and of all the resources that could now be obtained. Two hours further in time they had come to think of the losses in manpower and an hour after that, the order to rescue the few still living pilots in the destroyed FRANXXs, was given out.

After that was on the way, a long list of things to do was created, resulting in further explosions and many more deaths in the destroyed Plantations, before actual help was send their way.

And while the rumors spread like wildfire among the survivors, the first medics and transport crafts landed on the battlefield, to safe who they could, hours after the battle ended. No one besides the soldiers had so far been allowed to leave the Plantations that were still intact after the fight. This was a direct order, given by APE, the instant the battle had ended.

More than just a few good pilots died because of it.

Obviously not a single soul dared to even think about the madness, that lied in the implication that Papa's orders were somewhat flawed. It had to be for the greater good. It had to be for victory.

Still, more than one pilot had little sparks of doubt flash subconsciously through their minds, while carrying their dead comrades from the field of battle. Of course, those pilots were afraid of their own minds and tried their hardest to not let themselves be corrupted by doubt. Some even went straight for their commanding officer and told them what was on their conscious. Those were promptly sent to re-indoctrination and had afterwards lost most of their recollections of the battle.

While the Seven Sages were occupied consolidating their victory, the rest of APE was nearly unable to act on their own, due to the fact that without any orders from above, nobody knew what to do with the destroyed Plantations, the wounded and the amount of fallen FRANXXs. Not even touching the delicate subject of thousands of fallen Klaxosaurs, bleeding out in the wasteland.

Of the six Plantations that were the 4th United Company, there were only four left. The 5th lost another two of six and the 6th lost a single Plantation. Resulting in the loss of five Plantations total of seventeen deployed. On the military board, those weren't bad numbers, considering that APE promised it to be the last step towards peace negotiations. In reality though, those numbers meant hundreds of thousands of dead or missing people, the loss of culture and science unique to these Plantations and less members of APE alive. It were in fact horrible numbers.

* * *

Meanwhile, Squad 13 had returned to their briefing room and waited there for further instructions. Nana and Hatchi still hadn't returned from their inspection of the damaged areas and so the squad was on standby for a few hours already.

They sat in pairs or groups and talked about the things they saw and did in the greatest battle of their lives.

"... and then I realized that I had depleted all my energy reserves for the guns, so Futoshi said something like: let's keep fighting with that bridge as a weapon, and before I even knew it, I was swinging that damn bridge and kept on hammering it on Klaxosaurs left and right."

As Ikuno ended talking with a faint smile, the rest of the squad showed some small signs of easing up for the first time since the battle ended.

Goro and Ichigo let out a chuckle. Miku grinned and Zorome shook his head quietly laughing. Mitsuru and Kokoro raised their eyebrows in quiet disbelief, as they were the only ones who hadn't witnessed that scene when it occurred.

Futoshi sat up rapidly as he heard them and looked around while still being half asleep.

"I heard my name …?", he asked.

The rest looked at him in more than just disbelief.

"You really were asleep?!", Zorome shouted unbelievingly.

"Well, I figured I might as well take a nap while waiting and …"

The squad broke out into loud laughter.

* * *

Some metres away from the laughing group, Hiro and Zero Two sat eye to eye on one seat, hugging each other and kissing every now and then.

Both looked over to the others and smiled at their childish behavior, even after coming eye to eye with the horrors of war.

As they calmed down and continued their conversation, Hiro turned back to Zero Two only to find her already starring into his eyes, a single tear rolling down her left cheek.

They hadn't spoken more than a dozen words with each other since Strelizia had been recovered by the garage tech teams. But more hadn't been necessary. Hiro was too occupied realizing hints and flirts of hers, which had been a mystery to him up until now. But now that he remembered, it all came back to him piece after piece.

He couldn't even hope to comprehend how devastated she must've felt after certain points in their shared history and while he was not the one to forgive her for beating up the squad, Ichigo already did that right then and there on the battlefield on behalf of the entire team, after Hiro had given a brief summary of what was going on between them. He had had to promise her to explain it later in greater detail, but after seeing Zero Two's tear-stained face and her reaction to Ichigo reaching out to her, she was assured that Zero Two had definitely changed and she accepted her weeping apology.

Hiro himself still had to muster up all his inner strength to not just let out on all the emotions welling up inside his chest. Combined with all the returning memories it was nearly too much for him. He let some of those feelings out while leaning forwards and kissing the tear away from Zero Two's cheek.

She sniffled and pressed herself against him, leaning her chin on his left shoulder.

"I missed you so much Darling", were her first words in hours.

He thought about the fact that he hadn't missed her at all before she had entered his life a second time and he felt ashamed. He should have. It was unthinkable that he didn't. She had been searching for him year after year and he had just simply … forgotten about her. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes. And a darker feeling deep inside of him, that was processing all the atrocities they had to endure, was telling him who was to blame for that.

His eyes wandered off to a lonely figure, sitting on a chair in the darkest corner of the room. And Dr. Werner Frank looked right back at him.

The Doctor had been the only one present at the time they arrived here, so he had waved them off to the seats and retreated into the corner. In the entire time since then, he was observing them. And while he seemed to notice the behavior of the other Parasites, his focus lied heavily on the two lovers on the other side of the room.

Hiro sent him a glare of remembrance, but kept to himself, to not darken the mood of the squad. There would be another time to confront the Doctor.

For now, he was happy to hug Zero Two even more after hearing her still weeping voice besides his ear.

"It's ok", he whispered, "It's all going to be ok now."

And she believed him. He could feel it in every single inch of his body.

"I love you Darling", were the only words that came over her trembling lips.

"I know", he murmured back - still getting somewhat flustered about it, "I love you too."

Suddenly she straightened her body and looked him into his eyes again.

"You know", she began, while wiping off some tears, "I really thought I had lost you forever. After what happened last week, it just seemed so right to me that I would be punished like that after what I did. I can't really comprehend that we are here right now. And like that. It is too good to be true. Am I still inside Strelizia and losing my mind?"

That was no hollow question sprung out of happiness, he realized. She really, truly feared with all her heart that it may be the case.

Hiro gave her a sad smile, thinking of a beautiful but broken flower, leaned forwards until he was directly starring into her eyes and asked:

"Does this feel like madness?"

And then proceeded to kiss her on her lips.

Her eyes widened a bit as she answered it.

As they let go of each other she answered smiling:

"Not at all … Darling."

Then the doors to the command room opened up and Nana and Hatchi came marching down the ramp, eyeing up the Parasites while marching to their spot at the center of the room.

Hiro catched a glimpse of Nana looking at him with two raised eyebrows as he and Zero Two hastily let go of and sat next to each other.

He did send an apologizing shrug her way, though he didn't even know if that was what he really wanted to do. In reality he wanted to shout at her for being part of the problem, but that was just his darker self, welling up over some fresh recovered feelings. Or so he told himself.

As soon as the entire squad payed attention to them, Nana cleared her throat and said: "I'm glad to see you all alive and well. As for your new assignment …"

* * *

Meanwhile, within the inner ring of the Gran Crevasse, the Vice Chairman of APE marched down the long ramp of his transport ship. As soon as he reached the scorched earth he took a long look around.

The inner ring was the smallest of the defense fortresses that were the Gran Crevasse's outer perimeter, but it was still of gigantic scale. Now that the sun could reach its ground it would be easier to guess how big it really was, but that would require the sun to actually shine into the damn thing.

The Vice Chairman glared at the dark sky. It was early afternoon and dark like the void between the stars. The earlier battle had send so much dirt and smoke into the sky that it would be another day before some sunlight would erupt through the mantle of darkness above his head.

Suddenly a long and dark roaring snapped him out of his thoughts.

He looked at the gigantic pit before him, which was nearly as big in scale as the entire inner ring of the fortress. From somewhere down there came the scream of some … thing. The thought of some giant Klaxosaur, emerging from the depths and crushing him whole, was something not even the Vice Chairman could just shrug away.

He mustered a bit of courage to not take a step back in front of his escort, which consisted of a few dozen soldiers and the Nines.

Instead he proclaimed loudly: "Hear their screams of despair and rejoice men! For this day marks the beginning of an everlasting peace."

His soldiers showed some signs of easing up, but the Nines continued to secure the entire area until every stone was turned and it became clear that no Klaxosaur was close by.

The Vice Chairman didn't stop them. It was their entire purpose in life after all.

He turned to the captain of the soldiers around him.

"I want you to search the interior of all nearby buildings until you find something useful. And with useful I mean data and weapon storages, communication devices and all other things that could give us a hint of their strategies and tactics. This is the main objective of our coming here. Don't screw it up, captain."

The man saluted and replied: "Of course not, Vice Chairman." If he was confused as to why he should search buildings for hints on some sort of tactics used by Klaxosaurs, then he was good at hiding it. Although he added: "May I suggest to leave you at least a few men, to assist you in your own objective?"

He waved him away and said: "You may lent me two of your men, but don't expect them to return alive. My objective leads me down there."

The Captain gulped and ordered two of his men to stay with the Vice Chairman, while he took the rest and marched to the nearest fortress buildings.

Nine Alpha contacted the Vice Chairman shortly after.

"Here Alpha, we cleared the area and confirm it as secure. Your orders?"

The Vice Chairman marched to the edge of the seemingly endless pit before him and looked down. Another roaring scream greeted him out of the darkness.

"Find any means of entering this pit. Contact me immediately when you found something. I'll meet you there. After that you will secure a path down there and keep them from stomping, shooting or doing anything else to me, understood?"

"Yes Sir. May I say that this is very dangerous for you? Maybe you should stay up here and wait until we have secured enough of this pit …"

"Nine Alpha, your orders are very clear. If I wanted to stay here, I wouldn't be going to the lengths of giving you such orders."

In his mind he added: _and it's not as if I have any choices in this matter …_

"Understood Sir, my apology. We're heading out now. I'll inform you shortly of our way down there."

He didn't bother answering that and turned back to the transport ship.

On his way back to the ramp he thought to himself:  
 _Maybe I overreact because of the situation. Maybe there is nothing to fear about down there. If we crush them down there like we did above the ground, we don't even need to find there little princess. Then it will be our military victory and forced assimilation of their entire species._

And then this entire farce would be over at last.

His soul emitted shines of dark joy into the near surroundings, but there was no one nearby who could sense it, so he didn't bother hiding it.

Then – he just reached the top of the ramp – he heard some sort of rumbling behind him. And without turning he knew that it came out of the pit.

"Alpha here, Vice Chairman, return to your transport ship and flee immediately! Something is coming up, and it is big. I don't know if we can stop it in time."

All of his fears returned stronger than before.

Still not turning around, he prolonged the reach of his steps and stormed into the cockpit.

"Bring us out of here!", he shouted at the pilots, who were already starting up the engines.

And then, unintentionally, he looked at it through the front windows, as it emerged from the depths.

A long arm, ending in a hand with five fingers, and big enough to nearly reach all walls of the pit at the same time, came forth from the darkness and kept climbing into the sky, until the Vice Chairman couldn't even see the fingers anymore.

His soul emitted a little scream of fear, as he knew that he wouldn't go back to the collective, after being hit by that. This was worse than everything he and his superiors had ever thought of. They knew the enemy still had something big on their hand, but this wasn't just big. It was old. He could sense it. Its combined soul core emitted an eon old hatred, that could only mean that they fought back then for several thousand years without getting destroyed. That would make them some sort of ... war veterans. They were probably older than even the Super-Lehman-Class that had guarded the entrance to the fortress. And they probably could sense him at least as good as he could sense them.

"I said bring us out of here! Quit starring and get us moving, on the double!", he screamed at the two pilots.

Finally they started moving.

Metre for metre they climbed into the air.

A few miles away, the Nines started to attack the damn thing, but as much as he could see, they didn't even scratch it with their initial attacks.

"This is bad …", the left pilot began to speak as he realized first how the gigantic arm started to fall over in their direction.

The Vice Chairman's soul screamed in silent terror.

* * *

Hiro stared at Hachi, unbelieving of what he just heard.

He raised his arm and asked: "Sir, what exactly do you mean when you say "on standby"? We're not allowed to partake in our routine Franxx-Training Sessions? We will just stay at Mistilteinn and … wait for orders? Possibly for months?"

"That is correct", proclaimed Hachi with his usual monotone voice, "You are ordered to …"

A sudden alarm siren cut through the rest of his sentence and let everyone jump to their feet.

"What …", started Nana to ask, but she was interrupted by an enormous earthquake, that shattered most of the already crippled plantation.

Dr. Franks – who nearly fell of his chair – came to his feet and walked with a stagger towards the monitors.

Everybody stared at the giant hand that had just crashed on top of the plantation and buried most of it beneath its palm.

It was a miracle that Mistilteinn and the central pillar had been left unscathed.

Silence erupted as the monstrous hand once again rose to the sky.

They all knew that the plantation wouldn't withstand a second hit.

And there was no time to evacuate anywhere.

But even as Nana knew all of this, she still proclaimed:

"Doctor, you have to get out of here right now!"

Dr. FRANXX on the other hand had no eyes for her. Nor did he even hear her say anything.

His entire mind was occupied with acknowledging the sheer mass of the rising arm on the monitor.

"It …", he began to murmur, "It is beautiful."

Nana threw him a doubting glare, but stayed silent as the arm stopped moving.

It had reached its highest stance once again and loomed over the entire battlefield.

Zero Two grabbed onto Hiro's hand as they both stared in horror onto the monitor.

Unknowingly, mere two metres away, Goro and Ichigo did the same.

Then the arm did start to move again.

Miku closed her eyes, her mind occupied with thoughts about the picture of the old Squad 13 in the closed off rooms, back at the Boarding House.

Zorome, his mind blank, reached out to her and pulled her against his shoulder, trying to comfort her a bit.

Ikuno looked at Ichigo and Goro, who were still holding hands, and a single tear of regret rolled down her cheek.

Mitsuru's face was a grimace, expressing something along the lines of 'I knew it would end like that'.

Kokoro's face on the other hand looked just extremely sad.

Futoshi still tried to understand the situation to its full extend and just stared at the screen with a half opened mouth.

Hachi and Nana just looked at each other with a look of 'good bye'.

And Dr. FRANXX still stared – his face looking like he was in love – at the giant arm.

Which just embarked back into the pit it came out of.

And vanished.

Silence was all that followed for a single minute.

Then, with a minutes worth of hold breath hissing out, Zero Two broke the mood.

And chuckled with a little hysterical undertone.

"Well, that was quite something", she proclaimed with a weak grin.

One after the other the rest of the squad broke out in relieved laughter.

Embarrassed laughter in a few cases.

Even Hachi and Nana took a deep breath after that scene and looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"I think", Hachi started after everyone had calmed down a bit, "that your orders are invalid as of now. I will request new commands from Papa and …"

"That is incorrect Hachi."

Everyone looked at Dr. FRANXX in confusion.

"Their orders stay exactly the same. That is an order directly from me. And as you are part of my team, Hachi, you needn't ask anyone else in APE for other commands."

Hachi looked at him with his monotone face for a few seconds, then saluted and turned back to the Parasites: "Your orders stay as they were. You are still on standby within Mistilteinn. But I guess you'll have a few more things to do yourself then just a few minutes ago. That is all. Return to your quarters."

Confused and whispering to each other the Parasites left the command room.

Nana turned to Dr. FRANXX the instant the door closed and screamed:  
"You can't let them stay here! If that thing comes back up, they're all as good as dead. You know the rest of the plantations won't stay here after witnessing that attack right now, so there is no safety for them. They can't even reach their FRANXXs if they try, besides being ordered not to!"

The Doctor looked at her for a second before answering.

"You are very emotional on that subject. You shouldn't be. They are just test subjects. Don't forget that. Besides … you will stay here too. You too, Hachi. And I.

And if I don't misjudge the geezers in the council, there will be a military occupation of the area, too. So you really have no need to worry, Nana."

She straightened her back and gave him a firm nod.

"Understood Sir. May I ask the reason why?"

He shrugged and turned away to the door.

"Because we still need to find something down there."

And with that he was gone.


	2. A long day

**Hello my dear reader and welcome back.**

 **As the first chapter wasn't really much of a original take on things, but more of a general summary of the latest events, it didn't contain much of my own story. That will change with chapter two, as it is entirely written to set things in motion, which will lead to the mayor differences between the official story and my own.**

 **Without further delay, have fun.**

* * *

In the corridor outside, Squad 13 was on its way back to Mistilteinn.

Hiro and Zero Two were following a few steps behind the rest of the group. It was more out of habit, then anything else. Zero Two would never actually say it, but she also was a little bit scared to walk besides the people which she took on so brutally just a mere week ago. And which forgave her.

Never before she had had a so awkward relationship with other people.

Never before had she even cared about her relationship with other people.

It was scary. And that confused her a lot.

So she clinged onto her Darling and didn't leave his side for a second.

He would only smile at her and say: "It's all okay now."

How long had she waited to hear those words out of her Darling's mouth?

How often had she tried to make him remember?

How cruel it had been to start thinking that he really wasn't her Darling and that she was just fooling herself.

 _He is already long dead or even worse: still alive and searching for you, and you spend your time with this boy who isn't Darling at all._

That had been one of her thoughts from just two weeks ago.

She really had lost all hope back then.

But even crueler had it been to look into his face as he finally remembered.

The tears in his eyes, as his memories came back to him.

The stinging pain in her chest of having betrayed her Darling.

The even stronger pain to have betrayed him, but to have no chance to talk to him.

She had hurt herself physically so much, while being locked into her room. But no pain she inflicted on herself, had made the pain from within go disappear.

But now, all of that was like a bad dream.

She was finally with her Darling, the people she treated like trash had forgiven her and she was even assigned to their squad again. She would ride with her Darling again.

She sent a beaming smile to her left, were she clinged onto her Darlings arm for the entire time. Not even the thought of the enemy monster, which had just nearly crushed them all could make her feel bad right now. She felt like jumping and screaming and dancing and all of it together.

But then she looked into her Darlings eyes and her mood dropped a few steps down.

He seemed to be really deep in thought over something.

And the way his eyebrows were drawn together it wasn't something happy like in her case.

Zero Two calmed herself a bit.

Now there were the two of them.

She had to think of him just as much as of herself. Contrary to all her life before this moment.

And something was clearly bothering her Darling.

She tried to think of something that could go through his head.

Maybe he was worried because of their staying here, in reach of this monstrous arm. Or maybe he was worried for her, because he feared she may not get along with the others?

 _No, no_ , she shielded herself from that, _those are my fears, not his._

So … what was it?

 _No other way but to ask_ , she thought as she ultimately gave up.

Zero Two just opened her mouth to whisper her question to him, as he said out loud:

"I'm going to go to the bathroom, guys. It's just here around the corner. You can go on without me, I'll find the way back on my own. It's just a little bit urgent after that long battle and all …"

The rest of the squad turned back to face them and Goro – after having examined the pose in which Zero Two clinged onto Hiro's arm and stared at him – answered shrugging and grinning: "Sure thing, just don't stay too long you two. We don't want another Zorome-Incident now, want we?"

And before Zorome could even begin to jell at Goro, Hiro said:

"Oh, could you please take Zero Two with you? I'll catch on to you, promised. Please be kind to her. And you to them, too", he said in her direction with a quick smile, while moving away from her.

"Ah", she started to say something without even knowing exactly what she was about to say, "Dar .. I … Wai … You …"

He was already at the entrance to a small sideway, as he turned back to her.

Her heart made a little jump as she thought he would come back to her.

"It's all ok now, remember, Zero Two? I'll be right back. No worries."

And then he waved her goodbye and marched down the hallway.

Lost and alone she stood there and watched how he went around the next corner and faded out of her field of view.

Goro stood dumbfounded for a second, as he would never had guessed that Hiro would really just leave her with them.

But then his inner gentleman came forth and he threw her a little smile and said:

"Well then, I guess you will have to make do with us for a little while. Don't worry. We won't bite you."

Before she could answer, Zorome added in his most annoying tone of voice, while counting on his fingers everything she did to them back last week:

"… or scratch you, or hit you, or throw you, or strangle you …"

Ichigo, who realized Zorome's little outburst thirst, turned towards him to shout him down, but Zero Two already proclaimed with a little tremble in her voice:

"I really have to go to the bathroom too", and stormed after Hiro.

Ichigo landed a hit with her hand on Zorome's back of his head, which made him come to his senses, but as she turned towards Zero Two, she was already gone.

"Well, thank you very much, oh great Zorome!", she finally shouted.

"Next time, please have so much decency as to throw yourself off the balcony, when you destroyed the fickle peace within this squad again!"

Zorome's face turned bright red as he responded: "It was just meant as a little tease …"

"Then stop teasing the girl who sent all of us to the medical tract just a week ago! And besides that, how can one have so little decency to joke about something like that in moments like these?! Do you not even have this little amount of common sense? Aaargh!"

After this final outcry of rage, Zorome ducked even further in wait for another – maybe not completely unreasoned – hit on his head, but Ichigo just turned towards their goal and started moving again.

The rest of the squad still tried to process what just happened and threw glances at Ichigo and Zorome.

Goro was the last one to get moving again.

Throughout Ichigos shouting he had several times nearly started sprinting after Zero Two, to talk to her, but on one hand he didn't want to get near her while she was emotional ever again and on the other he wasn't entirely sure which way she took, so he just stood there and looked a little bit lost into the small sideway, as if he could make her come back by that alone.

Ultimately he sighed and followed the rest of the squad.

He made a mental note to later apology to Hiro for not dealing any better with the whole situation. Plus, he noted to himself to go talk to Ichigo right after their return to Mistilteinn. This problem had to be dealt with immediately. Zorome had to openly apology to Zero Two and that would go very much against everything Zorome stood for. _But Papa have mercy on his soul, when I or even worse, Hiro, have to make him do it._

* * *

Hiro was having problems of his own.

Of course there was no bathroom nearby. At least none he had ever heard of.

But he never planned to go to one anyway.

Little stings of guilt reminded him constantly of the fact that he had just lied to everyone who was his friend or even closer.

The thought of leaving Zero Two behind with the others without having talked to any of them about their special circumstances was maddening.

But he had had to make a decision.

And his decision had been to act.

Right after they had left the command room, a memory of the room he had been gotten brainwashed in had come to his mind again. For the first time in long ages.

He remembered Dr. FRANXX being there.

He remembered Zero Two being bound to a bed besides the one he himself was bound to.

And he remembered the numbing horror of getting his memories and his thoughts themselves ripped out of him.

This experience was certainly not meant for the patient to remember afterwards.

But now that he did, he wanted to know why.

And in the last minutes, back on the great hallway, he had come to a conclusion.

He would search for the answer whether the wiping of his mind was justified or not.

If he would find evidence that it was, he would begrudgingly accept it. He swore that to himself. If this wiping of his mind was for the greater good of humanity, so be it. He would never forgive them, but he would acknowledge it as justified.

But if he came to the conclusion that they did that on a whim or worse: to just experiment what would happen next to him, he …

He didn't know what he would do.

But this new dark voice deep within him kept whispering grudges and promises of revenge.

Hiro feared this new side of himself.

Meer days ago, he never before had felt anger greater than for himself when failing, or for things Zorome said, or anything like that. He had never felt a greater anger than either such born out of helplessness or such born out of immediate teasing.

This anger he felt now was old. It wasn't the kind of anger one could just swallow and forget or to have a little bit of trouble over and it would go away.

It gnawed at him from deep within.

And it wanted out.

Keeping it deep down wasn't a way to solve this problem.

It kept growing with each memory that came back to him from his childhood that had been stolen from him.

There was the anger about the fact that they took his promise to Mitsuru from him and made him lie straight to his friend's face, which destroyed their friendship for all the time since then.

He just remembered about that. It wasn't even five minutes ago that it came back to him all of a sudden. And it made so many things clear in one horrible second.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

They had kept Zero Two a prisoner.

They had treated her horribly.

They had outright tortured her.

He had seen it.

He had seen Dr. FRANXX do it.

Back then, in front of the giant glass window.

Whatever information he could gather on those tests - on this torture - he doubted with every inch of his body that it would make him feel any different about it.

He didn't want to feel any different about it.

He wanted to hate those who had done this to Zero Two.

His mind snatched back into the here and now, as he heard a pair of footsteps go by in another sideway.

He stayed still and hold his breath until they were out of hearing range.

Then, carefully, he started to move again.

He was going deeper into the net of corridors and hallways, which surrounded the central pillar on the ground floor. This region of Plantation 13 was the military headquarter. It was made up of the immediate buildings around the pillar and most of the floors of the pillar itself.

Somewhere in this area there was a military archive.

Hiro knew this, because he had been there a few months back, as he was searching for some combat data on battling more Conrad-Class Klaxosaurs at the same time.

As a parasite he was part of the military, and as such he had a clearance for most parts of the archive.

The point was, he wasn't allowed outside of Mistilteinn, without Nana or Hachi accompanying him, or at least giving him some sort of written order.

The last time he was here, he went to the archive via a much bigger hallway and towards the double-doored main entrance, while being in the company of Nana.

That was much easier to get in there, than sneaking around corners and having to hide every few seconds upon hearing footsteps.

It was just a matter of time until he would run into someone.

Slowly he moved towards the next crossing of hall- and sideways and took a quick look around.

He remembered this part of the command center.

The official entrance to the archive was just around the next corner.

The next corner of the giant hallway right in front of him that was.

Of the giant hallway on which at least a dozen soldiers walked or stood around.

Immediately he retreated back into the shadows of his sideway and thanked someone – some responsible person – for the fact that a few rollable containers full of garbage stood between his hideout and the open street ahead.

Then he heard some sniffling sound from where he came from.

He pressed himself deeper between two containers, while slowly gliding beneath one of them, without making any more sounds than absolutely necessary.

Then he came to an abrupt full stop.

With widening eyes he witnessed how Zero Two, her eyes a little mess from obviously crying, came around the last corner he took, looked in every direction possible, then letting out a sigh of giving up and gliding to the floor on one of the walls. She obviously didn't care if someone saw her or not.

 _What are you doing here, girl?!,_ his entire mind was screaming.

But instead of panicking, his survival instincts took over and he concentrated more on the obvious.

She had been crying. She was not with the Squad. And she was obviously looking for him.

Hiro could hear his heart break.

 _I left you all alone without saying anything, didn't I?_ , he asked, as if she could hear his thoughts, _I may be new to this love, kissing and understanding each other better than friends stuff, but it's just painfully obvious I should have done anything but that … And now she sits right there and feels what-do-I-know horrible while I sit between this freaking garbage right next to her. What am I even supposed to do at this point? I need to get in there fast, before someone starts searching for me … But I can't take her with me now, can I? Maybe she wouldn't understand … Maybe she wouldn't want me to go in there and get my sorry behind in trouble for her sake. Maybe …_

A sudden thought crossed his mind.

 _Maybe that's all bullshit. How did I meet her again, by cowering behind something and feeling sorry for myself?_

Hiro looked with a pained glance to the girl he loved and who calls him her Darling, then turned around one hundred and eighty degrees – or at least as good as he could, given his circumstances of being stuck between two containers – and gave the one which stood towards the big hallway a massive toss, which let it roll onto the hallway and given by weight, slope and sheer luck managed to roll it down the street and away from his position.

From the instant it started to move, Hiro took off and sprinted out of his no longer viable hiding spot.

For a brief moment it felt to him as if he was moving in slow motion, as the noise of the container behind him, the totally confused look by Zero Two and his own hammering heartbeat came all together down on him.

But the moment quickly faded, as loud voices erupted from the hallway behind him.

He ran faster than ever before in his life and his face must have had a look to it, which even let Zero Two getting dead serious within a few heartbeats.

She came rushing to her feet as Hiro reached her, grabbed her right wrist, and stormed off with her. Through the corridor, around the next corner and into the safety of some unlocked cleaning room. All while confused shouts followed them from the great hallway as soldiers tried to grasp what just happened.

A few seconds of him panting and her observing him carefully later, some soldiers ran past the door to the now locked cleaning room.

Hiro held his breath until they were gone and finally let out a last long breath, before he ultimately looked over to Zero Two.

Her eyes were still swollen from crying, but the stern look in them made him neglect that fact altogether. She was really angry. He could nearly feel it physically. But somehow he could tell that she wasn't just angry at him.

Hiro let out a sigh of surrender, after none of them had said a word for nearly a minute.

"I'm really sorry", the words were flowing out of his mouth.

"I didn't want to lie to you, I didn't want to make you mad, I didn't want to leave you with the rest unprepared, I … I am a complete and utter idiot for just leaving you there and running off. And I …"

She sighed too and sat down in front of him, while signaling him to do the same.

As they both sat there, Zero Two finally answered:

"I really was mad at you for a second, you know? Just storming off like that. I made a complete fool out of myself just a minute after you were gone … I can never again face any of them. A joke. The guy was making a joke. A mean one, sure, but not undeserved, I guess. And I panicked and … just ran off. How can I face one of them ever again, after that? And then you were just gone. I couldn't find you or the bathroom at all. And then I realized I had gotten lost. It was all so frustrating. I may have ... cried at some point, yeah, but that's completely irrelevant right now Darling!"

She threw him a really worried glance.

"Those were soldiers. The men we ran away from. I could hear the heavy boots and the clanging of submachine guns against running bodies. I know that because I've ran away from people like them more than just one time. But … what have you done, Darling? This isn't like you at all."

Her look at him grew ever more worried.

Hiro shook his head.

There was no point in hiding any of it from her.

"I wasn't chased for something I did. I shouldn't even be here, you know that. There is no bathroom and I never wanted to go to the bathroom, just so we're clear on that. So they could just arrest me and then wait for Nana or Hachi to come and get me, even if I claimed to just have searched for a bathroom. But before that I have to get into the secured area in the military archive ... unseen, that is. And without any orders backing it."

Her right eyebrow rose a bit, but she was just listening.

She was good at listening.

"So, you may ask yourself why I have to get in there this urgent. It's nothing I was ordered to do, of course. It is … personal. I need to get clear on something. It has to do with our past at the garden."

Now he had caught her interest.

Zero Two's eyes grew wider and she let out an unwilling: "Oh?"

As they hadn't had the time to talk in private at all, she knew nothing about how much he remembered and if he may knew things she still couldn't remember herself.

She knew that he remembered a little girl with a picture book and he obviously changed his entire behavior towards her since then. He got caring at a whole new level and even had been really lovey dovey back in their free time at the command room. And now he ran off and did stupid things, which were against all rules. She didn't mind that at all. In fact, that was the adventurous boy she had learnt to love, way back then.

And a little smirk crossed her lips.

"My Darling is a real criminal, hmm?"

She let out a silent laugh, at how he turned a little bit red.

"I don't mind that. You saw me deal with the rules on my own often enough, right? And I remember a little boy, breaking a window in and rescuing a scared little girl out of her cell, although nearly every rule was against that."

She sent him a beaming smile upon the memory. And it got even brighter as she recognized that he was remembering it too.

He shed a single tear as she said that.

A single tear of joy and sadness upon their shared past.

It all felt so strange to him.

The entire situation.

They were sitting in an old cleaning room, while being searched for by soldiers and talked about a past they themselves didn't knew all about. But still, it felt unbelievingly good to talk to her about the things that happened back then.

"I knew you would remember that. My little rebellion against the mean adults."

He chuckled with a sniffle.

"I never told you, but the day before that one … I had seen what they did to you. Back then, I couldn't figure out what the hell they were doing. Just that they hurt you badly. If I remember correct they were doing tests on you, right? You don't have to answer. I can hardly talk about it myself. It's making me want to throw up."  
He shook his head in silent disbelieve.

And looked into her still smiling face.

How could she be smiling, while all those memories must been flooding through her mind?

She must have read that question on his face, as she answered it promptly, while changing position besides him and laying her head on his shoulder.

"Darling, I love you for caring like that. No one else has ever cared about me like you did and do. I love you for what you are. For how you are. None of those things you just said could ever make me sad, for they just remind me of you saving me. I burned those memories into my mind, after I recollected them. So I may never again forget how you saved me of my torture. That were the first things I recalled, after the wiping of my memories. But it was only months after our meeting and I never got to see you again. They really extended the defenses of my prison after that. Since that day, I tried to remember as much as possible. I even ate the picture book, just so I could hold on to those memories it contained."

She let out a sigh, as she was getting all of that off her chest.

Never before in her life had she told any of that to anyone.

It was relieving on another level.

She smiled as he started to stroke threw her hair and started to whisper something she couldn't make out at first.

But even greater was her surprise as she realized that he was citing the picture book. And flawless that was.

"… And on her sixteenth birthday, the princess took flight to the world beyond the forest."

He looked at her and smiled sadly.

"Yes", she whispered back, "And then they sent me off to the front. That was when they told me I could become human by killing Klaxosaurs. I wanted it so badly. To be like you. So we could be together, when I finally would have found you. I guess that part of the book never became reality, huh?"

He kissed her on her hairline, between her small horns.

"Do you really think that's true? You look much like a human to me. And you speak like one. And even as I got no experience in the matter at all, I'd even say you kiss like one."

She took in the warmth of his words and just enjoyed being with him in this very moment. But as the minutes were passing by, she knew that their time was running out.

"Darling", she began to murmur.

"I know. We need to get moving if we want to make it back before they miss us."

She looked at him in disbelief.

"You just want to get back?"

"Well, what did you think where we would be going … oh no, we're not doing that!"

"Of course we will. You already broke the rules. I break the rules all the time. So let's get into that archive and see if we can get our hands on whatever it is you want to see! Even if it is for a completely idiotic thing, I'd still go with you! Now come on!"

And with that, she pulled him up with her and towards the door.

"Zero Two, if they just identify one of us …"

"Nope, it's not gonna change anything. If they get you, I'll turn myself in. We're not going to be ripped apart again."

"Of course, I'd do the same for you, but …"

"No but's. I'm going with you. And you're going to need me regardless. Or did you forget that you probably don't even have the clearance to get into the better secured parts of the building?"

Now she got him.

That was a part of his plan, he had been planning to improvise on.

Against the scanner's there was little he could do.

But with her at his side it was a piece of cake.

He really started to consider it.

"Ok, we'll do it. But please, stay low and don't try to take out anyone, got that?"

"Roger that, Darling. I will do as you say. Just give the word if you change your mind or need me for anything else."

She winked at him, saluted and made an exaggerated face full of confidence.

He grinningly rolled his eyes, as he felt relief deep inside of him, to not have to go alone into this.

Together they unlocked the door and stepped outside.

Everything was quiet. No footsteps or sirens were to be heard.

"Let's go", he said. Now with a stern look to his face like right before a battle.

She nodded and followed him like a shadow.

Corner after corner they took the long way around these hallways, to not get near the crossing, where the distraction took place.

A few times they had to hide, as a soldier or other personnel marched by.

To their incredible luck, there were enough hiding spots on their route.

Until they nearly reached the backside of the archive and ran into a patrol of two soldiers, who had stood in the shadow of an entrance to the building and came out as they saw them come their way.

Hiro's mind was calculating possible outcomes at high speed.

If they came any nearer they could see their faces and identify them later on. He could absolutely not let that happen.

Begrudgingly he turned on the spot to hide his face and said:

"Take them out, Zero Two. But have mercy on those poor guys, no fatalities please."

She nodded and dragged him into a crossing sideway.

The soldiers followed them quickly, while one grabbed onto his helmet to ask for reinforcements. But as soon as they reached the corner to the sideway they were lost. Zero Two waited for them at the nearest point out of view possible and smashed the first man's head against the following soldier's one and as they both went down, hit their heads to the ground again, just to be sure. Afterwards she checked them both for their vital signs, while Hiro stood beside her with a worried face.

This was turning pretty dark.

If one of them was dead …

"They're both alive", Zero Two finally proclaimed, "But one of them should really see a doctor. I think I fractured his skull a bit. What should we do with them?"

Hiro looked over to the shadowy entrance where the soldiers originally came from.

"We'll just drop them there and check by on our way out. If they're still here, we can make some noise to get attention to them and head back to Mistilteinn afterwards."

She nodded and dragged the soldiers into the shadow and in some seemingly comfortable positions. Hiro couldn't stop himself from making a surprised face, as Zero Two even took her time to apply a bandage to the fractured skull of one of them. "You sure are nice to the people who have done you so much wrong for years."

She shook her head with a cold face.

"I'm not doing that to be nice to him. For all I care he could go to hell. But he could die if I don't stop the bleeding somehow. And it would get us in really big trouble if we would start killing soldiers now. I don't want them to do something horrible to you, just because I accidently killed one of them. They wouldn't harm me any more than usual …", she looked at Hiro with a pained look, "But they could harm you even more instead. I don't want that to happen Darling. So I take care that he doesn't die."

Hiro nodded while heavily gulping.

"Understood. I won't stop you one way or the other. Those poor guys were just doing their duty when they tried to stop us. They surely don't deserve what we did to them. But there is no helping it now. It happened. So make sure he will live and then we're off."

She agreed, finished her work and they moved on to one of the next entrances of the archive.

Carefully Hiro tried to open the door, but it was magnet locked.

A console was standing right next to it.

A console with a slot for some kind of key card.

Zero Two tapped on his shoulder and he turned towards her.

She was handing him a key card that looked much like it would fit in the slot.

 _When did you …,_ he started to signal, but she already pointed back to the two unconscious soldiers.

He just gave her a thumbs up and let her take the glory of opening the door for them.

After the card had gone into the slot, the door unlocked with a *clang* kind of sound and let itself open like a normal door.

Inside the archive's main room stood a few desks and chairs, who were all empty at the moment. Though on one of the desks laid some documents, so maybe someone was in here.

Carefully they snuck into the great hall, closed the door behind them and moved in the shadow of a big metal stairway, which led to the upper and lower levels of the building.

In both directions there were enormous amounts of data storage devices.

But only the stairs who let down to the basement had had a body scanner placed right on the lowest pair of stairs.

Hiro signaled Zero Two that they would go down first and they moved their bodies against each other and pulled through with their old trick of mocking the usage of those things by going through at the exact same time.

The body scanner turned from dark red to a bright green for a moment, before setting back and releasing them into the lesser illuminated parts of the archive.

Everywhere were electronic data storages, but on a few metal shelves there lay some physically stored things in cartons, too.

Everything was numbered after some system, but they had no idea as how to use it to get what they want. So Hiro grabbed on to some gloves, which lay on one of the shelves for protection of the archived goods and used it to hide his fingerprints while being in here. Zero Two, who kept hers always in one of her uniform pockets, followed his example.

And then they started to search the sheer endless amount of screens for any kind of data that were connected to the garden.

There were lots of scary things down here.

From battle reports with high killcounts on behalf of the FRANXX-pilots, which were caused by direct orders from the Seven Sages or Papa himself, to the usage of orders like Protocol 32 or the self-destruction of entire Plantations.

The overall image, painted by those reports, gave view to a very bloody side of this war, which Hiro hadn't seen until now. Just now he had seen a report on how the Parasites of Plantation 26 had died. It was just one and a half hours old.

With a disgusted face he switched to the next report, while he did try his best to not let out on a few very unfriendly words he wanted to loudly scream at APE Command. He just couldn't believe they sacrificed a whole squad of good veteran pilots for nothing. It was … just not right. And it had been sure as all hell not been "for victory", as stated in the report.

For Zero Two all of this came at a much lesser surprise, if any at all.

She had seen countless times how APE had sent Parasites to their grave.

She had partaken in two earlier attempts to break the Gran Crevasse.

To say it had been bloody on the human side was the understatement of the century.

It was part of the reason why she had started to look at the other Parasites as cannon fodder. That and their treatment of her.

She shrugged those thoughts off and concentrated more on getting results.

Suddenly Hiro froze and turned towards her very slowly.

Zero Two couldn't see the reason why, but she could hear footsteps closing in on them from his other side.

"Hey, who are you and what are you doing down here?", the man asked from a few metres away.

Zero Two itched on her heels to storm off at him, but she had promised her Darling to wait for his orders.

A split second later, Hiro decided to go all the way, now that they were already in here.

"Take him out quickly. We need to get out of here."

"Yes, Darling."

The soldier stopped and tried to process what he just heard, as Zero Two already kicked a heavy console his way, which got him to grunt and cover himself and not to start running and yelling.

The crashing console and the falling soldier made enough noise on their own.

No need to let him scream for help, too.

Zero Two was leaning over him in a heartbeat.

Two heavy hits on his temple did send him into deep unconsciousness.

She stood up, after checking his vitals, and looked at Hiro, who had already begun to download as much data as he had found so far onto an external data storage, which were laying besides every terminal.

"How much?", she asked him, while she started to do the same at the next device.

"Not enough", he simply replied, "I don't know if we got what I came for."

She nodded and returned back to the screen in front of her.

This was so idiotic.

They had broken in a military complex, attacked three soldiers on duty and now they were stealing tons of military secrets just to get one information that may or may not be hidden between them.

It was by far the craziest thing she had done in quite a while.

She glanced at Hiro while she waited for the download to complete.

He looked steady and calm, but she knew him long enough to look behind his facade. _He is nervous and more than a little bit scared_ , she thought.

 _Hell, even I'm nervous, how could he not be._

The minutes kept going by, as they downloaded all the amount that they could get on two storage cards.

The data was comprised to all information about Parasites and their activities, but it was still an insane amount of files.

Hiro kept an eye on the entrance the entire time, but no one came to check on the unconscious soldier. Maybe he really had been alone in the building.

His insides jumped up and down the entire time since their coming here.

He had never before done anything like that.

Well, besides the part where he broke into a prison cell and tried to escape with the prisoner that was, but that had been years ago and he hadn't knew the consequences.

Now he did.

And his mind was filled with fear over the thought of losing his memories again. Or what they might do to Zero Two if they found out about her helping him.

Suddenly the peeping sound of the console in front of him snapped him out of it and he quickly drew the card out of it.

Zero Two was ready on her console a minute afterwards, and they hurried to get to the body scanner.

Together they went through it without causing alarm and went silently upstairs, to take a careful look at the main room.

A single soldier was sitting at the table with the documents from earlier.

An empty chair besides him that had been left like someone had wanted to get back at it let them account for at least a second soldier in the building. If the second one wasn't the poor guy down in the basement.

Hiro looked at the little backdoor they had come through initially.

It were a good ten steps from their hiding spot at the stairway to the door.

And the soldier had a good spot to see them instantly if they started to move now.

But all of Hiro's thoughts regarding a distraction were for naught, as all of a sudden he could hear a voice from the basement.

"Son of a bitch …", the pained voice proclaimed.

Hiro looked at Zero Two, whose eyes were widening as she heard it too.

"We run. To the door, through the hallways and back to the cleaning room. From there we get back to the main hallway and run straight through, until we reach the elevator. Got that? If someone calls us out on the way, we state to be late to a meeting and keep running."

She nodded and they began to run instantly.

As they had crossed half the way, the soldier from back at the desk shouted:

"Hey, who are you? Where are you coming from?"

From up at the library in the first floor another voice answered:

"What's going on down there?"

As Hiro and Zero Two reached the backdoor and made their way out by using the stolen key card again, the first voice already screamed:

"Intruders! Hurry up and get down here! All personnel: hunt them down!"

Then the door shut and they couldn't hear him anymore.

They ran past the two still unconscious soldiers from earlier and Zero Two took the time to get something off of one of them.

With his earpiece in hands, she ran after Hiro, while trying to get it in her ear.

"We got at least two fugitives on the run in the military district. One of our men is down, but alive. Requesting an ambulance and further reinforcements to close off the area completely. At this time, we can only coordinate some blockades down at the bigger hallways. All troops in range are to blockade all ways in and out of the archive's quarter. I also want someone of APE-Command down here, ASAP!"

Zero Two shut the thing off for a moment and told Hiro about the news she received.

"We're not going to get out the way we came in. Maybe we should take the other route, back were we met."

Hiro thought about that for a second.

Then he nodded.

"Alright, lead on. Take out anyone who stands in our way or comes close enough to identify us later on."

That she did.

On their way to the spot where they had met earlier, Zero Two broke through two hastily erected barricades, containing of containers and two men each.

At the second one, one of the soldiers nearly looked her right in her face, but she managed to get the other one between them and beat him up with his comrade.

That made it seven in total.

Hiro had gotten his hands on two helmets and threw one over to Zero Two, so they had something to cover their faces.

The uniforms were still a dead giveaway, but it was better than nothing.

"Alright, we should be through the worst. Now let's …"

"Stop right there criminal scum!"

Annoyed, Hiro turned towards the nearing voice, to tell Zero Two to deal with him, but down the sideway came a dozen men.

"Those are too many. We can't cripple an entire squad on our own, while they have weapons. Let's get out of here!"

Zero Two agreed and together they ran off.

Nonetheless, Zero Two grabbed a submachine gun from one of the downed men at the ground and unlocked it while running.

"Don't worry, Darling. I won't shoot them. I'll just scare them off, if they come to close."

Hiro nodded.

 _If it comes to that we will be hunted as real terrorists_ , he thought horrified.

With that in mind, he ran as fast as humanly possible, even catching up to Zero Two's speed.

The jelling voices behind them and the trampling sounds of soldier's boots slowly began to fade.

After a few corners, he slowed down a bit.

 _I can't hear them anymore. Maybe we shook them off. But maybe they are hunting us into a trap. We can't stay on this hallway any longer._

"Zero Two! We have to get off this hallway. I have a bad feeling about it."

She turned to him and gave him a brief nod.

"We have to turn left anyway. They are chasing us into the wrong direction."

As he agreed, they ran towards the next sideway on the left side.

They just barely had made it in, as a loud cracking sound and a hissing noise appeared right behind them, followed by a part of the floor getting shattered.

"Sniper!"

Zero Two threw herself against her Darling and brought them both down to the floor.

As soon as possible she rose to her feet again, standing between Hiro and the direction the shot came from. Her hands moved the submachinegun into firing position on their own.

 _Where are you, where are you, where are you_?, her mind kept racing, as she searched the surroundings.

While Hiro came back to his feet, she snuck to the corner they just took and looked back into the bigger hallway.

She heard their followers coming nearer again, but had no time to think about it, as a second shot was fired and she threw herself back into the sideway.

The explosion of the hit and thousands of little floor fragments followed her.

 _So he can't aim into this corridor. Alright._

"Darling, we have to move! Run! Run!"

Hiro nodded and started to run again.

Without turning back, he ran as fast as he could again.

Zero Two stayed back.

Without making a sound she cowered right behind the corner.

Her predicament proved correct, as she heard a single pair of boots run up to her from the hallway. The second the soldier came into her sight, he was thrown against the wall and smashed to the ground. She took his sniper rifle and bashed it against his forehead. After checking up on him, she immediately started to sprint after Hiro.

Two corners ahead, he was waiting for her.

"Don't do such things, please", was all he said.

She knew what he meant.

"I'm sorry. It was something spontaneous. I didn't mean to send you off alone. I just thought he may come out of hiding, after hearing my words and your footsteps. And he did."

She looked at him flustered as they started running besides each other again.

"We're even now, I guess", he shrugged it off, "But no crazy one-girl-army stuff anymore, ok? We have to be out of their patrol range by now. I guess that … what did you call him?"

"Sniper"

"Yes, that sniper seemed to be alone. I don't think they would have sent a single guy, after what you did to the rest. Anyway, how come you know so much about this military stuff? You can handle a submachinegun pretty well, as far as I can tell. And you recognized, whatever it was that gave him away as such, the sniper, as you call him."

She handed him the heavy sniper rifle.

Suddenly her face seemed to become kind of stoic, he thought.

"A sniper shoots from a far distance to kill an enemy with a single shot. They are used to kill enemy leaders, destroy unarmored vehicles and so forth. To use one in this cramped environment and against just two people on foot is a little bit of an overkill, if you ask me. I guess you are right and they are indeed desperate."

He looked at her with an asking face, as she just blatantly ignored the other part of his question and threw the weapon and his helmet away.

"You know you can tell me everything, don't you? And please don't give me 'it's a pain' this time."

She winced on the last part, as it marked one of her least pleasant memories and let go of her helmet too.

They finally arrived on the big hallway that led to the command room in one and to the elevator in the other direction.

Slowly they looked around, but couldn't make out any other people.

Not running anymore, but still quickly, they marched into the direction of the elevator.

Zero Two sighed.

"Darling … there are many things I never ever want to tell you. Because I love you. Certain things would just shock you, but others … If word came out, that I told you about it, they wouldn't brainwash you again, as you can still remember afterwards, if the memories are triggered correctly. They would outright shoot you."

His eyes grew a bit wider, but it certainly wasn't something that hadn't crossed his mind in the last hour. The fear of getting shot was constantly following him, even now.

"And you handling those guns is one of the latter?"

She nodded silently.

"The only thing I will tell you willingly is: if you brake too many rules, some people will get very mad at you. Powerful people, that is. And if they decide that you can't possibly atone for your actions, they decide how to deal with you. On one of those occasions I learned how to take down humans by the use of rifles and other stuff. One warning though: what we did today was just out of the will to get our hands on some information's we aren't supposed to look at. But that was the first step that in the end let to me getting used to weapons. Never forget that, ok Darling?"

Hiro gulped a bit.

"I understand where you're coming from. I'll try to avoid breaking the rules any time in the near future then."

She seemed pleased by that answer.

"Yes, that would be good. They still will find a way to track us down. Somehow they always get me for the things I do. We have to take a look at the data quickly and scan through it within a few days. Then we have to let it disappear, before they come for us. This way, we should just get smacked and not instantly thrown in a cell or something like that. Well, considering that on those sticks could lay some of the information's I just talked about, we may be also very dead after reading them. But that isn't very likely. I mean … we broke into the local military archive not that of high command, right?"

She said the last part half joking, but Hiro knew her to good, to not sense a bit of fear behind those words.

Again, for the thousandth time this past hour, he asked himself what in the world he had done.

A few silent minutes later they reached the elevator unhindered.

Zero Two suddenly made a pained face and said:

"So there was no bathroom at all, right? I really need to go see one right now …"

Hiro was shortly taken aback, but soon realized that they were monitored while being in here.

"Yeah … I could have sworn I went to a bathroom somewhere around here before, but I may have confused things, sorry."

She nodded, still with a pained look to her.

After hearing her next words he suddenly realized that they were not entirely feigned.

"So … you could distract me a bit by telling me how I am supposed to talk to your squad again."

She threw Hiro a worried glance.

He began to smile as soon as he heard that.

"So you really do care what they think of you that badly now?"

She got a little bit red and murmured:

"Well, we will be living together again and … I will have to eat with them and spend time with them in general and … it would be a pain if I had to avoid contact with them all the time, sooo …"

"And maybe you want to actually be friends with them?"

She gulped.

"Maybe. Just a little."

And turned away even further.

Suddenly she felt Hiro's right hand on her shoulder, squeezing her softly.

"That is the right way to go at it. You tell them that and I am sure none of them will turn you down. And as I know Ichigo pretty well … I think poor Zorome is already waiting for an hour to apologize to you for what he said", he smiled.

"You think she got mad at him for teasing me away?"

Her eyes grew wide, as she turned back to Hiro.

He nodded.

"Definitely. She forgave you. First in the mid of battle, as she got me to Strelizia, then afterwards on the field. I really think she is trying her best to make up with you. You really should talk to her in private later on, but first let me explain some things to her, ok? I bet she will see you in a different light, after hearing about brainwashing and torture and that stuff. And no, no, no! Don't give me that look. Please, Zero Two. Let me explain it to her. Not because I want her to pity you for anything. But because you two are going to be real squad mates and something like that shouldn't be kept to just the two of us. Of course I won't tell them everything. They don't need to now all of our shared memories. But they need to know the gist of it."

Zero Two really struggled to get behind that, but deep within her she already knew she would let her Darling do it. Not because she thought that it was a good idea, but because she had basically no social competence whatsoever and he thought that it was a good idea.

Sighing she nodded in agreement.

"Alright. You tell them whatever you think will be necessary. But I won't talk to them about it. I don't talk to anyone about those things, but you."

"You don't have to. No one will pressure you to talk about it, I promise you that. Well, maybe Zorome will, but that's because he has as much social competence as you do", Hiro laughed awkwardly.

Zero Two snorted.

"That's fine. I think I start to understand how he works."

He just smiled back at her and pointed towards the console on the wall.

"We are there. Let's get at it, shall we?"

She took in a deep breath and then the first step towards the door that opened up.

Hiro walked by her side, while still holding her arm a bit.

She didn't mind that. She really needed a little bit of encouragement to take the next step. All her inner mechanisms screamed at her to run away. And maybe for the very first time, she just ignored them altogether.

Mistilteinn was still as beautiful as ever.

Not even the now broken glass dome could do that any harm.

They walked over the bridge together and to the big entrance of the Boarding House.

He noticed that someone had been standing on the other side of the windows, by a vanishing shadow on the other side.

He became thoughtful upon that, as they entered the building.

In the entrance hall he took a look around, just to find Ikuno leaning on the wall beside the door to the sitting room.

She gave them a sign to follow her and then went into the room.

"Well then …", Hiro proclaimed shrugging and went after her, Zero Two by his arm.

As they entered the room, they were shortly taken aback by how the room had changed over their short time of leave.

There were flowers in vases and bottles everywhere.

On a bedsheet hanging on the opposite wall was written:

"Welcome to the squad back"

And all squad members were standing somewhere in the room, bowing upon their entering and saying in union: "Welcome back to the squad Hiro and Zero Two!"

Hiro finally let go of her arm, as he couldn't think of any reason why she should need his encouragement anymore and smiled a beaming smile at Ichigo, who undoubtedly were behind all this.

But her eyes were entirely fixated on Zero Two's as she waited for a response.

And Zero Two responded by shedding some tears, while still starring at the scenery in front of her.

Ichigo finally showed a smile herself, as seemingly a ton of weight dropped off of her chest. She gave a little nod with her head and Zorome took a step towards Zero Two before bowing again.

"I am very sorry for my horrible joke back at the hallway. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to drive you away. I am sorry."

And judging by how he said that with a little tremble in his voice, he really did mean what he just said. Hiro was in awe.

Zero Two sniffled the tears away and surprised everyone but Hiro by bowing herself towards Zorome and saying: "It is forgiven and forgotten. You don't need to apologize to me. I am the one who really needs to apologize to each and every one of you. Not only for the fact that I did beat some of you up to unconsciousness, but also because I did not treat you the right way after you did all you could to welcome me to your squad. I am sorry. And I am very grateful for this possibility to start our relationship anew. Please give me a second try to …"

At this point tears were streaming down her face, uncontrolled.

"… to become your friend."

And then she started crying full and truly. And she didn't try to hide any of it, as every tear was bearing her hopes of not getting rejected.

Ichigo stood there, eyes wide open, one hand clutched over her open mouth, while looking from Zero Two to Hiro and back.

Futoshi, who stood beside her, looked like he would start crying too at any second now.

Goro leaned back at the other side of the room, all his fears shattered and with a feeling of being right about her the entire time – or most of the time, rather.

Zorome was too dumbfounded to correctly process the situation, as he had expected some kind of storm coming over him instead of this.

Miku stood in shock, a single tear of heartfelt joy rolling down her cheek.

Ikuno was the calmest of all, but even she was moved by Zero Two's words, even as she tried to hide it. Her gentle smile gave it away for everyone to see.

Mitsuru – who had as the only person in the room already suffered twice because of her – was really taken aback for a second, after seeing the 'monster', which tormented him greatly back then, bowing, apologizing, crying and saying she wanted to be his friend. But as everyone else had forgiven her and she really seemed to mean it … He sighed and gave her a pained, but honest smile as well.

Kokoro just simply walked up to Zero Two and hugged her for a long time, to let her cry over her shoulder.

Hiro – who was the only one beside Zero Two who could see all the faces in the room – was relieved beyond end. This was the best possible outcome he could have asked for.

He gently stroke over Zero Two's back to signal her that he would leave her for a second and went over to Ichigo.

One after the other the squad now took turns in hugging with Zero Two, to make her feel better.

As Hiro stood beside her, he just whispered:

"Thanks, Ichigo. For everything."

She smiled back at him with a little bit sad face.

"I hope you are happy together. I really mean it. After all that …", she took a deep breath and made a gesture with her hand in the air, "… you really can't let anything get between the two of you. Or I will get really angry. Maybe punch you even, if I think you're not doing it right."

Hiro chuckled upon hearing that.

"Alright, I take you by your word. But please coordinate the punching with Zero Two. If I ever were to make her sad, she would send me flying", he laughed.

Ichigo couldn't hide her grin from him, so she didn't even try.

"Alright, alright. But cut the chatter for later, I have to go hug your girlfriend now", she grimaced at him jokingly.

He gave her an encouraging nudge she didn't really need and watched as she took over from Ikuno and hugged Zero Two long and truly.

Goro, who had had his fair share of hugging already, came strolling towards Hiro, so he directed his attention over to him.

"Hey Goro, how much of this was Ichigo's idea and how much yours?"

"Pffff …", he shrugged it off, "I had barely any initiative in it. It's all thanks to the girls, really. We boys just tagged along as usual."

Hiro looked over at Futoshi, who was really crying his eyes out now, steadily repeating: "This is all so wholesome …", then looked back at Goro, who was again shrugging, yet had a big grin on his face.

"I see", Hiro replied very unconvinced and they both started to laugh at each other shortly after.

* * *

Later that day Hiro lay in his bed, listening to the peaceful snoring of Goro, and thinking about everything that had happened today. It had been one hell of a ride and it had thrown all of his life upside down again.

It was nearly unthinkable, but on this very morning he had been alone and sad and saw of his comrades, who were going into the battle of their lives without him.

And now he not only partook in said battle, he reunited with Zero Two, they finally were truly together, they won the battle, then broke into the military archive and escaped with an unknown amount of data to uncover their past and finally reunited the entire squad to one big group of friends, including Zero Two. What a day.

But now - his face got a little bit more serious – he had work to do.

He grabbed the data stick out of its hiding spot behind his bed.

With the other hand he searched under his blanket for the other thing he was going to use. He found it and brought the two together.

 _Now let's see what we have gotten our hands on here …_

* * *

Nearly at the exact same time the chief of staff of the archive had managed to get someone of the surviving elements of APE within Plantation 13 to take a look at the severity of the break in from earlier and to take command over the troops hunting the culprits down.

"… as you can see yourself, Sir. They then proceeded to the basement, where they managed to get through one of the highest security ratings we have in use and stole data in horrid amounts. We aren't entirely sure as of now, but it must have been a few dozen terabyte at least. The Lieutenant of the second battalion from east block was down here when it happened and got knocked out in the process of confronting them. As I told you, he couldn't make out a face before his vision faded. As with all the men we lost to the medics today. Afterwards … Sir? What is it? You look … different … all of a sudden."

"Give me a full report on everything until tomorrow morning. It is the first thing I want to have on my desk when I wake up, understood? Besides that, I want the reports of every man who was knocked out and is already awake again. Furthermore I need copies of everything they have stolen, all footage of every camera in the area and the data of every person this body scanner has scanned today. Make sure that I get it all on time and I promise you, I will get your pair of intruders faster than you think, Chief", Hachi replied with his typical monotone voice. But he didn't need any of that. He knew it. He was certain that he knew who it was they were hunting. The description of the fugitives had been enough to worry him and get him into this case. But after hearing what happened to the soldiers and the involvement of an S-Class Clearance for scanners it was all too painfully obvious to him. The only reason why he didn't simply stormed up there with a bunch of soldiers for a damn raid was that he could not at all understand what in the world had gotten into their heads to do that. And a part of himself was appalled by the fact that he even cared, instead of simply doing his duty. But he wanted to know, before he would go up there. He would see through all the material and then he would talk to Nana and the Doctor.

* * *

 **Whew, that was quite the ride.**

 **I originally wanted to include most of the events of chapter three within this one, but after realizing that it is already more than twice as long as the first one, I scratched that.**

 **So yeah ... I guess I just made Hiro and Zero Two criminals and thugs. For quite some time I have been asking myself: "Is this really in character for them?" But ultimately I convinced myself that it is. Zero Two is at that point in time not the cute girl with flowers decorating her horns, but still a cold (yet thawing) person, who will do anything to keep herself and her Darling save. And why would I condemn her for that? Hiro on the other hand was more difficult. He has his doubts and he isn't fully convinced that he is doing the right thing. I hope I let him show that enough. But on the other side his new feelings of revenge help him a big deal to get behind what he does, while it happens, so there we go.**

 **All in all this chapter came out as quickly because it was already as good as completed as the first one was released. The third chapter will need a little bit longer until it is finished.**

 **And then we will get to see how the Vice Chairman is doing after being hit by that very big hand earlier. Also we might get a glimpse on what kind of data the two have stolen from the archive.**

 **See you then, your Birne3000!**


	3. The truth hurts

**Hello folks and welcome back to The Rising Jian!**

 **It's been a while since the last chapter and this one isn't even as long, but I do sure hope you like it nonetheless.**

 **I know some people who are reading this fanfic have their fair share of problems with the VIRM/Alien thing, but I just couldn't bring myself to simply erase them from the story, so I decided to just write them a bit differently than they were depicted in the anime. In all truth ... they aren't really depicted anyhow in the anime. They simply are there ...**

 **So I tried to flash them a bit out as characters, even though they cleary are the antagonists of this story. But I believe you have to know a bit about the enemy to really understand him and his motives.**

 **As for grammar and stuff, I can not encourage you enough to point out all the worst mistakes on my end, so I can eradicate them.**

 **Thanks to all the people who have given me feedback and positive reviews or even speculate about possible future events of my story! You keep this fanfic alive.**

 **And now ... have fun.**

* * *

A new morning was heralded by a single siren in far distance. By that and a few sunbeams, who came shining down to earth through some first little cracks in the still very dark and cloudy sky. One of those happened to fall directly into the wreck of an APE transport ship's crushed cockpit, which lay several steps away from the rest of the ship's carcass.

Inside, there were piles of wrecked machinery, parts of the crushed hull - which looked like a very angry child had smashed a toy onto the floor - and of course three bodies, of which two were obviously human – given by the fact that they had been splattered across their seats by the armatures and could clearly be identified as such.

The other body – despite the damages done to his clothes – was seemingly unharmed, as there were no signs of blood or ripped apart limbs.

The mask covering his face was damaged, but not to the extent that one could see through from the outside.

But way more important to the Vice Chairman was what was going on inside of his head.

"I order you to open your soul to the collective! Now! And don't you dare disobeying me now, after making me go to these lengths to finally reach you!"

The very angry voice, echoing inside of his very soul, shouted at him in a maddening loud tone.

But he was afraid.

He was afraid of the fact that he was afraid, too.

Never in at least a hundred thousand years had something made him feel like this.

Until he had witnessed the giant Klaxosaur himself, he had always thought of himself as kind of immortal. He knew of course that he could in fact die, but the possibility for it to really happen was unimaginably low.

But as long as he stood on the cursed ground of this damned planet, he had only access to a tiny amount of the collective. And if his body should die here, the Chairman – or Papa, as the humans called him – would not and could not retrieve him, as there were no resources available to store his soul until he could receive a new body.

To return to the collective – the real collective, out in space – was impossible as long as they hid among the humans to cover up their actions. If the Klaxosapiens would discover their involvement in the current fighting, a second great war would erupt on the planet the humans called "earth" in their language, the Klaxosaurs called "lost paradise" in theirs and which VIRM called "Assimilation-Target B3". Not that they could actually return to the Great Collective. Their connection to the homeworld or any other planet under VIRMs control had been disrupted many millennia ago. And now there were only three of them left.

The Vice Chairman shuddered internally as he realized what he had done to cover up their being here. He had screamed in silent terror at the sight of that "thing", but had had the presence of mind, to cloud his soul while doing so. That meant he had severed his connection to the collective, stayed hidden in the collapsed ship for hours and had fallen into a state of self-pity and fear, caused by the sudden withdrawal. So that monster should not have been able to spot him as what he really was. At least in theory. In all truth he was less than certain that he had been quick enough to cover himself, or if the beast had in fact spotted him and was reporting back about his real nature right now.

The reason he couldn't bring himself to get back to the collective on his own was his state of mind. Once he was taken back into the group, Tarsier and Papa would instantly recognize his fear and the fear of what might have happened to their entire operation on this planet.

But there was one thing even scarier than the thought of what might happen once they found out … and that was what might happen to him when he didn't return willingly.

With all the strength he could muster he carefully reached out with his mind to search for the others. Just one human heartbeat later his mind was already being grabbed and pulled in by a tremendous force that swallowed his entire existence within a second.

The Vice Chairman stopped existing as Papa and Tarsier scanned through every bit of information of what had happened at the Gran Crevasse after the victory, as seen through the eyes of their former partner.

Way up in the stratosphere, where the aerial fortress Cosmos was slowly moving in a circle, Papa leaned back in his seat. Tarsier was the only other Sage in the council's meeting room, as it was deep in the night on board the station and the human members were all asleep in their chambers.

Papa looked at him and said:

"Those are dire news for our cause on this planet. We have to assume that the enemy now is being informed of our being here. If that comes to pass, we will have no other option than to wage all-out war against their entire population at once."

Tarsier agreed.

"That is correct. We would have to make use of more than just the few human clones we're using as Parasites right now. We would need to erect an entire military, outfitted with the necessary technologies and weapons to take down Klaxosaurs on mass. That would take quite some time."

"Not only that. If we give the humans the means to defend themselves against an enemy like no other, there will always be the possibility that they might fend off our own fleets, once the time of their arrival nears. I want us three to be the forerunners of VIRM's victory on this planet. Not the reason of its second demise."

He paused and took a long look at the planet beneath them.

"It's been a long time, Tarsier. Do you still remember how great the old days in the central collective had been? Our first invasion of this place?"

Tarsier nodded slowly.

"I remember it. I had just been given back the function to think for myself again, after nearly three hundred thousand years of service as a drone trooper. Then I was instantly dropped on the front line as a section commander. The entire war was one glorious experience for me. To finally think again was … quite enjoyable."

Papa nodded, but said nothing about his own experience of getting back his intelligence.

He never did that, Tarsier knew that by now and didn't expect to ever hear the story.

"The great defeat was not quite as enjoyable though", Papa added, "How long has it been? Fifty million years, of us being trapped on this planet, unable to get in contact with the central collective?"

Tarsier slowly shook his head.

"It's been roughly sixty million years by now."

Papa nodded.

"That's more likely. It feels like all eternity. That's the downside of being immortal. You can get stuck in a prison for forever."

Tarsier tried to get back on topic, with asking: "Well, what are we going to do now? And how long are we planning on letting the poor bastard be split apart in our little collective of two? It's getting straining on my mind to keep his identity intact."

Papa nodded again.

"I think he had his warning. He may live. We need him anyway to pull through with this until the end."

With that he released the iron grip around the Vice Chairman's soul and threw him back into his ethereal body in the destroyed transport ship. But his connection to their collective was renewed.

"I understand. I gratefully accept this mercy by you and ask for forgiveness for my late reaction in face of the enemy. If it has indeed harmed our operation, I am truly …"

Tarsier cut him off mid-sentence.

"That is nice and all, but could we get to the subject at hand? We need to find a way into their underground networks. We need to find a hint on where they brought the princess after our last attempt to kill her has failed miserably. The next time I'm going to do it myself, just to be sure. She is dangerous for us."

The other two agreed to that.

* * *

Meanwhile at Plantation 13, Hachi marched towards his desk and found what he expected to find there. A massive amount of data pads and sheets of paper.

Without any reaction whatsoever he sat down and stared at the little mountain of work before him. Then, nearly hesitantly, he grabbed randomly unto one piece of paper and scanned over its content.

It was a hastily written report by an army Sergeant, who had got beaten up at one of the barricades yesterday. Basically he reported to have seen a red flash, coming out of nowhere, and knocking him unconscious before he did even realize he got attacked.

Hachi's eyes narrowed down to a line as the sudden urge to just grab a few men and storm Mistilteinn returned. He threw the sheet away and didn't even realize how it landed on the floor and not – as intended – back on the pile before him.

He then grabbed unto one of the data pads.

"Report of stolen archived data", read the title of the only entry.

He opened it and found an incredible long list of documents. Not actually the documents themselves, for they were in fact stolen, but at least the names of said stolen documents. It would take him days to look through them. He shook his head. That was too long. He would simply resolve the situation by force. For a last time he scrolled down a chunk of entries, before finally laying the pad back at the desk. He then opened up his top drawer and took out the pistol he did never need to use before. Deep inside of him, in this very moment, as he inspected the weapon carefully, he realized that he didn't want to go up there. For their sake … and his own. For he knew what could be asked of him if he did. But his duty was clearly lined out for him and there was nothing he could do about it.

Slowly he rose from his seat, reaching for the intercom to summon some soldiers to accompany him.

Until he suddenly stopped.

While reaching over the data pad with the list, he had spotted an entry out of the corner of his eye.

"On the subject of difficulties with the current Code 007/Nana, regarding her indoctrination"

And just below that:

"On the subject of difficulties with the current Code 008/Hachi, regarding his indoctrination"

Nearly instantly he dropped back at his seat and picked up the data pad again.

He knew that there had been some complications with the two of them, but he couldn't remember any of it. And suddenly here there were the documents who could tell him everything about it. Everything about his current state of mind. Everything about Nana's sudden outbursts of emotions. It had been in the archive the entire time.

The only reason he never thought of checking it for information on the matter had been his clearance. He was allowed to walk into nearly every corner of the Plantation. But there were still a very few places where his clearance wouldn't get him into. The basement of the archive was one of those. For there lay information, not even he was allowed to see. But now everyone higher up the ranks was dead. Everyone safe for the Doctor that was. And the Doctor wasn't the kind of person who would involve himself in a case of breached protocol. It was really simple now. Not a single soul would care if he looked through the actual stolen documents, right? In fact, wasn't it even his very duty to check on the data those silly brats had gotten their hands on?

Thoughts like those kept creeping into his mind, as suddenly the door opened up and Nana walked in.

He was amazed and terrified at the same time, upon feeling somewhat caught in the face of his thoughts.

Hastily he got rid of those and tried to get some order into the pile before him.

"Good morning", he than greeted her, as monotone as always.

Nana raised an eyebrow as he usually did not greet people.

"Yeah, you too", she said in a somewhat surprised tone, that even Hachi realized what he just had said. But before he could say anything else, Nana suddenly picked something up from the ground. It was the piece of paper from earlier.

"You're getting messy with your work now?", she asked. Still somewhat surprised.

He nearly ripped the sheet out of her hand and stuffed it back into the – now somewhat sorted – pile in front of him.

"Yeah, well, thanks for picking that up. Didn't even realize it fell from the desk. It has been a kind of hasty night and morning. You got word of what happened at the archive yesterday?"

She nodded and her face turned grim.

"Yes, I heard. You are in charge of the case now?"

"They didn't stop begging me to look into it and as it seemed they couldn't find anyone other than me to do it, I gave in. And now I have this."

Hachi made a gesture with both hands, as if trying to embrace the entire pile of work in front of him.

Nana looked at it again and raised an eyebrow.

"You are very thorough with this. Are those security camera files?"

She pointed at a certain data pad.

"Why not leave at least some work to the military? You don't have to look through everything on your own now, do you?"

He tried to shrug it off: "You know I'm thorough with everything I do. This is a strange case. A break in in a military building right the hour after a giant Klaxosaur destroys most of the Plantation? That isn't normal I'd say. So yes, I have to look through it all myself. But that reminds me of something. Would you take over as Overseer for … say … a few days? Just until I am finished with this. You don't have much to do, other than assigning some duties and explaining basic functions of living on their own to them."

Nana sighed.

"You really are into this case, aren't you? Well, I guess it won't hurt if I take over the part of teaching them how to wash their clothes from you."

He threw her a somewhat comical monotone look.

Grinning she put another data pad on top of his pile and turned towards the door.

"I originally just wanted to bring you that. Have fun with your crime case, Hachi."

Just as the door closed behind her, Hachi let out a long pained sigh.

He had with no word lied to her, but to keep her out of this like that was … odd, to say the least. It felt wrong. But he could not tell her. Not until he hadn't decided how to proceed.

Then he picked up the data pad he had hidden beneath his desk the whole conversation and looked further into the section where he had found his and Nana's names.

Maybe there was more.

And in any case: he needed those stolen files.

Hachi stood up from his desk, unlocked his pistol and requested a dozen soldiers to wait for him at the central elevator.

He had finally found what he had been searching for years now.

According to the copy of the file register there was a ton of information about the indoctrination process on that stick. Information that was usually way more classified. But the security measures had become a joke over the last decades it seemed. Without any incident whatsoever even highly classified files hadn't been deleted after their retention period was over.

Finally he rose from his chair again, his pistol in the right and the data pad in the left hand. With long steps he began his way to Mistilteinn.

* * *

At the same time Zero Two was strolling through the boarding house.

She wore her usual formal attire and the sternest face she could muster, to make sure her Darling would immediately recognize her readiness to pull through with their infiltration until the very end.

Right now she was on the way from her own to his room, to ask him if he had an idea on how they could read the data on the stick without using their own wrist bands, which were certain to be controlled by APE. She wanted to ask him to accompany her to their first breakfast as squad mates too, of course. It was true that she made up with everyone, but being alone with those people still made her feel really uncomfortable. She wanted her Darling to smooth her in over the next days, so she could get accustomed to it.

While reaching the boys wing, she noticed that seemingly nobody else was awake. Or at least not outside of their rooms. She got instantly nervous as she recognized it. Had the squad been summoned somewhere? Had she forgotten some meeting?

But as she past the door to the room where Zorome, Mitsuru and Futoshi were living, she could clearly hear some loud snoring coming from that direction. Immediately she calmed down.

 _They are probably still really tired from the battle yesterday_ , she thought to herself, _It was their first one after all and they all made it back alive. That's quite some feat to rest upon._

Belatedly she realized that she had just praised her squad, fellow parasites, for something other than dying valiantly. She had never done that in her live before.

With a little smile on her face she finally reached the door with the sign reading: 'Goro and Hiro'.

 _I guess he really has a name, other than Darling,_ she smirked and carefully knocked on the door, _Hopefully he is even awake, otherwise I stood in front of the mirror the last hour for nothing …_

But after a little while she could hear footsteps nearing the door.

She set up a beaming smile and prepared herself to give her Darling the heartiest morning kiss in all of history, as suddenly Goro opened the door, still in his sleeping attire and with a confused look to his face, to see her in front of him. But he wasn't nearly as unprepared for this encounter as Zero Two, whose smiling face quickly turned to a flustered mess.

"Aaah … good morning", he eventually said, while trying to hide the fact that he must have just fallen out of bed to get to the door. He even straightened his back and tried to look somewhat dashing with a weak grin and wild hair. But it failed miserably because of the pajama.

Zero Two in response had to snort a little and slowly her nervousness was fading.

"Good morning to you too, Goro. May I … borrow my Darling from you for a moment?", she asked in her politest tone of voice.

Goro scratched himself on the back of his head and looked back into his room, before turning towards her again.

"Well, you see … I actually thought he was already with you since earliest morning. He left around four or five o clock. I haven't seen him since, I'm sorry."

Upon hearing that a shocking thought crossed her mind.

 _What if he has already found a means to access the files? What if he is already reading them for hours? Oh hell no, I have to find him! He is not prepared in the slightest to read that damn thing on his own …_

With a little panic in her voice she asked: "Goro, you are Hiro's best friend, right? Where would he be if he wanted to be alone and without anyone interrupting him?"

Goro finally got a little more awake, after hearing her say that. His eyes sharpened as he thought a while over that question. He finally answered: "Well, that usually doesn't happen. The very first time I ever noticed him trying to be alone was after he rode with you for the second time and had gotten really sick. He didn't wanted us to worry about him. But even then he would just go to the bathroom or stay in our room until he felt better. I'm, again, sorry. I don't know where he would go. But … is something the matter? Your face kinda tells me I should worry about him. Shall I help you search for him?"

Zero Two's face told him before her reaction how conflicted she was on that.

"Errr … I think … Maybe. Maybe it's nothing, but …"

Goro finally was awake enough to recognize for sure that something was wrong.

"Ok, please talk to me. What in the world is going on and why would he go hiding somewhere?"

She sighed and answered vaguely: "He may be only thinking about something we spoke about yesterday really hard and sought some place he could do that without someone interrupting him. But … the other possibility is that he came to a conclusion that could drive him very, very fearful and if it comes to worst, insane. In any case, the latter would require that we find him right now, so I can speak to him."

"What on earth kind of topic could have such consequences?", he asked with widening eyes, while hastening back to his bed and putting on his uniform over his pajama.

Zero Two's face grew ever more nervous again, while she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and back again.

"Errm … you know how he and I have something going on, he hadn't had the time to tell you guys about? How we got so close and all that? It has something to do with it. I really can't tell you much more on the spot …"

Goro came out of his room, closed the door behind him and muttered some silent curse at no one in general, as he started to hastily walk towards the stairs, Zero Two tailing him.

"I assume you don't want this to get into a squad-wide search then? Well, if it's only us two searching for him, we should split up. I'll take the garden outside and you search all interior, alright?", he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah, alright. If you find him and he's obviously not well, then try to find me as quick as possible, ok?"

The really concerned undertone of her voice made him a little nervous too by now.

"Yes, yes … geez … you're making me all confused and worried here."

She looked down as they arrived at the entrance to the building.

"I don't mean to. I am really thankful for your help with this. I … am sorry I can't express myself correctly."

He turned towards her while opening the door and tried to look a little bit more encouraging: "Oh forget that, I'm just worried is all. No need to apologize. I'm sure he'll be all right and we will find him in no time at all. I mean … where should he go? Mistilteinn isn't that big."

"Yeah", she managed to smile back at him, "I guess you're right. Good luck finding him Goro."

"You too, let's find our little troublemaker."

Still smiling they parted ways and began to search in their respective areas.

* * *

Hiro sat at a small table in the library.

It was early midday and up until now he hadn't met any other parasite today, as he was locked in here since round about 04:00 am. In front of him on the table he had placed the data stick, which was connected to the device on his wrist, which showed him the content of the stick via a holographic interface on his own palm.

Slowly he worked his way - entry after entry - through the list. In the hours he had spent searching for the answers he wanted, he had already seen things he knew would never again leave his mind. And time after time he had asked himself how in the world they all had been fooled all this time by APE, the caretakers and the adults all together.

Just after he had arrived in the library he had learned that the average lifespan of a parasite was somewhat between eighteen and twenty-five years, depending on how much active combat he saw in his life. Apparently the death toll in younger ages was rising, due to the amount of pilots who died on the front lines without enough new cadets to replace all lost personal, resulting in more active combat for all parasites still alive, who in return would die faster of the effects of drained yellow blood cells.

Later on he had learned about the so called "production" of new parasites. There were multiple facilities like the Garden scattered across the continents, who were cloning children in some kind of mass production, to train them as parasites. From that point on it was only a small step to the truth about all the vanished children in the Garden. They didn't make it. They had simply been somewhat faulty to the people running these processes and were thus replaced by more promising specimen. Simple as that. Whatever happened to those children afterwards was a topic, which never had been given enough priority to make it into one of the entries on the list.

Hiro's stomach was turned as he finally reached the peak of what he was able to digest in one session of reading those damned files.

He nearly had smashed the stick against the nearest wall on several accounts, but then he came across the title "Tests on the durability of Parasite Code 002". For a good ten minutes Hiro had sat in his chair without doing anything after finding it. In that time he asked himself several times if he really wanted to open this file. And every time all of his mind screamed "No!" at him. Then he finally opened it.

The file was basically a list. A long list that is.

Halfway through, at an entry called "Response to severe burnings on all limbs at once", Hiro had already read through things like "Response to multiple fractured legs", "Response to multiple stabs in the chest, safe for primary vital organs" and the like. But he had read more than enough already.

He closed the interface on his palm and finally, after hours of just stuffing his mind with the most gruesome and darkest of truths, his emotions broke free. Tears started to flow over his cheeks as his entire world crumbled around him. Again and again he wished that he could undo the stealing of that data, so that he'd never know any of this. But it was way too late for that. He knew it all.

For quite some time he simply kept weeping. He didn't want to think about the reason why. And no feeling of hate or anger was strong enough to stop him. He just sat at the table, the face buried in his palms, and cried for all those poor parasites, regardless of whether they were still in training, active pilots or already dead. He felt like the entire world had just declared war on him and his friends. But he was the only one who knew of it. Well, he and …

Someone rattled at the closed door before realizing it was locked. A gentle knock followed.

"Darling? Are you in there?"

Hiro's face hastily turned towards the door. His tears suddenly stopped coming.

Slowly he rose from his chair, knocking over the bottle of water he had brought with him and forgotten beneath the table. With a loud noise it fell over.

"Are you alright Darling? Answer me! I'll break through this door if necessary!"

Hiro arrived at the door the next second and opened up.

"Please don't. We don't want them to come and install cameras in here too now", he answered with a weak smile.

Immediately her hands went over his cheeks, while she made a face of guilt and sorrow.

"I searched for you the entire morning. I thought you might try to let me out of this and search for your answers yourself, but …", she looked at Hiro and her mouth was trying to form the correct words, "… I couldn't bring myself to visit you yesterday evening. I was so happy and the thought of everything bad that might be on this stick … it was scaring me away. I … I didn't want to leave you alone with it either so I came by early in the morning to check on you, but … you were already long gone. I am so sorry Darling! I didn't want you …"

He gently pushed her hands away and lay a single finger on her lips. Then he pulled her into the library and closed the door behind them, locking it in the process.

After that he finally let out a sigh and wiped away some of the tears that were still on his face.

"You know … for someone who didn't used to care too much about other people in the past, you sure are compassionate. Thank you. I think I'm better now."

She threw him a doubting look and still stayed very close to him, so if as she tried to block all the negative things he must be thinking about.

"I sure am compassionate with you, Darling! You know, in case you forgot, I do love you after all. I feel horrible when I think about you, sitting alone between all those books and reading this stuff that must make you feel terrified of everything. I don't know what exactly is written in these files, but I can take a good guess. Tell me, seriously, how do you feel? Are you ok?"

Her worrying face came a bit closer again and inspected every inch of his own.

Hiro stood in silence for a long moment. His eyes were staring into hers.

All the information on the torture experiments came back up. And a single tear rolled down his cheek as he looked into the worrying eyes of his girlfriend, who was thinking only about him, instead of her own misery.

"No", he finally whispered, "I am not ok. And I don't think I'll ever be ok again …"

His already shaking legs gave in after that confession. He fell on his knees, not crying anymore, but staring into nothing. In this moment, he just wanted someone to come and safe him from this nightmare he had inflicted on himself.

And there was someone who was just made for that task.

Zero Two instantly dropped in front of him and hugged him like no one ever had before. She didn't say a thing. She just embraced him and gently wipped to and fro with him, to comfort him all she could. It all felt very much like yesterday, just that she was now comforting him, instead the other way around. And just like that her lips started saying: "It's all going to be ok, Darling … it's all going to be ok …".

Several minutes later Zero Two had taken away all the immediate pain on Hiro's mind and he finally let out a somewhat relieved sigh.

"Thank you. I feel better now", he finally said, yet he didn't let go of her. Instead he began to return the hug and now they sat on the cold floor of the library, hugging each other and resting their heads on each other's shoulders.

"I'm glad to hear that Darling", she whispered back, while closing her eyes for a moment, "You are strong. Really strong."

He snorted for a second and shook his head a little bit.

"No, I am not. I just have an amazing guardian angel who protects me."

And the way he raised his head and looked into her eyes he made it very clear as to whom he was referring. He then proceeded to kiss her gently on her slightly trembling lips, which she immediately answered.

In this moment of peace and of love, of compassion and of comfort, a strange thing happened to Hiro. He suddenly didn't feel pain or loss anymore. He felt courage. Whether it was the magic of this kiss, the influence of some higher power or just the second his true self awakened to its fullest, Hiro knew what he wanted to do.

And what he wanted to do was to make this girl happy for the rest of her life and to live with her to explore the world like they always had wanted to, since they both had been children. He wanted to safe her from a world of pain and cruel experiments and from a life that only could end one way: in the death in battle. Hiro wanted to create a place where his friends, his love and he could spent their time without the constant fear of death or the everlasting shadow of APE-Command.

He chuckled as he realized how much of a utopia that would be. And how much would have to change to make that possible. But he had made up his mind. He would strife to reach that utopia or die trying. They all deserved to be happy. Each and every one of his squad mates deserved better than what APE had planned for them.

Zero Two let go of his lips and raised her eyebrows as she realized how much his facial expression had changed since they had begun to kiss.

"Was it that good?", she asked half-jokingly.

He just smiled back at her, gave her another quick kiss and rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.

"It was amazing. You made me finally realize what I want to do, now that I have all this information. You just gave me a goal, my angel, that's way more than I could have asked for."

She snorted and got a bit flustered.

"Well, it was my pleasure Darling. And stop calling me your 'angel' already. What kind of angel has horns, hmm?", she said while touching the tip of her right horn.

"My kind", he said with such confidence that she raised both eyebrows and never again said anything against that.

And while Zero Two stood still, still touching her horn and thinking about his words, Hiro had returned to the place of horror, where the cursed data stick still lied on the table.

Quickly he connected to it again and searched for the file he had stopped at earlier.

Hiro stood there for a second, just looking at it. He took a deep breath and then finally let himself sink into the chair again. Zero Two followed him and drew another chair close to his.

„So, Darling, you say I have given you a goal", she sat down, laid her chin on his left shoulder to have a good view and looked onto his palm, „Care to explain what exactly that would be?"

She threw him a curious look and raised an eyebrow.

Hiro had by now sorted his thoughts and banned all the atrocious things he had learned today into the back of his mind. His face had turned from showing fear and despair to a look that reminded Zero Two of the face he usually wore in battle. The Look of a warrior. And she knew that he was one. She was certain that her Darling was already overcoming the ugly truth of this world.

He answered by showing her an open document. He said nothing. He simply showed it to her. His eyes met hers. They were apologizing to her.

Curious Zero Two read the first line … and froze, as she saw her own name.

Silent she skimmed over the entire list. Here and there she snorted or winced at a cruel joke only she could understand. She wanted nothing more but to look elsewhere and to hide her face in her Darlings back, but she knew that he wanted her to read it all. And so she did. She had allowed it to happen that he read it all on his own. Now she wouldn't back down from the truth herself.

Pain, long forgotten, returned with each and every one of the lines she read.

Pain of body and mind equally.

At one point - the line read "Test 3 on survival during extensive gassing with open wounds" - she had to close her eyes for a moment and had to calm her breathing. Hiro looked like he really wanted to close the file but did not say a thing. Nonetheless she kept reading the entire list until the very end.

Afterwards she finally leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes again. Pictures of the cruelest torture possible with modern machinery kept crossing her mind. Never before had she actually read a list of all the things they had done to her over the years. While those tests had happened she would only sort them by the amount of pain that was inflicted on her that day. A pain-meter for keeping her sanity so to say. _Yesterday was a 'much pain' day, so today is going to be a 'not so much pain' day_ , and so on.

While thinking back and slowly regulating her breath back to normal, she suddenly realized that her cheeks were wet. Unknowingly she had shed a few tears while reading. With a trembling hand she began to wipe them away, but Hiro already was doing that for her. The list had vanished from his hand, back into the hell pit that the data stick really was.

Had she known what cursed things were on this thing, she wouldn't have let him keep it even for a second. Hell, who knew what things may still be hidden on it or the other stick she carried in her pocket?

"I'm sorry", Hiro muttered finally, his face a combination of swollen eyes from his crying earlier, of a very apologizing look and at the same time a nearly frightening readiness for all things to come, "I had to show you what made me decide my fate."

She rolled her head over in his direction, steadied her voice and replied immediately: "Our fate. Whatever you plan on doing, you know I'm with you, Darling."

He smiled at her for a second but got earnest right away again.

"I know. I really don't want you to be a part of this, as it is going to get really dangerous, but that probably goes for the both of us, so … let's not try to keep the other out of it and do our best to stay alive, ok?"

She nodded. The way he talked he hadn't finished yet. And it sounded like he really thought of doing something crazy this time.

"In short: I plan to free the parasites of this unit and of as many units as possible out of the slavery that High Command and APE have born them into. I plan to find a place where said parasites can live a peaceful live, without the fear of getting torn or blown to pieces any day. I plan to take revenge for the atrocities committed by APE to all parasites alive or dead. That means I plan to overthrow the Sages and everyone who follows them willingly. And I won't promise not to simply shoot them when I get the chance. I plan on an all-out revenge campaign against the leaders of humanity. And I know exactly how much I sound like a madmen saying that."

He took a breath and looked in her face, as if he was searching for a sign that she wasn't with him on that. But her face was an empty mask. He couldn't make out what was going on inside her head. So he simply sighed, took a long sip out of his water bottle and then looked back at her.

"I know it sounds cra …", he began again, but was almost instantly disrupted by her asking: "Darling, do you know how to take a human life?"

He closed his eyes, his face stern and shook his head.

"No, I don't. But I made up my mind that I will have to kill people if I want to reach the goal. So … I am willing to learn it. As hard or brutal as that may sound."

She simply nodded, her face still empty and without emotion.

"You know that we could try to escape this system on our own, right? Why open rebellion? Out of hate?"

"Of course not. If I wanted to just desert APE, I would tell everyone in Squad 13 what's going on and try to flee with them. But that's not going to happen. APE has all resources they need to stop and kill us shortly afterwards. Even if we would fight them in our FRANXX, they would simply wear us down. So nothing would be gained that way. Besides, I want the other parasites to have a chance to live their lives as well. They don't deserve what's being done to them any more than we do", he answered with a shaking of his head. He understood that those questions were meant to test his resolve in this matter. He didn't plan on failing any of them.

Zero Two nodded a bit.

"Why kill the sages and not have them openly judged and sentenced?"

Hiro's left eye twitched for a second, because there was only one true answer to that.

"Out of fear that they may live somehow. I want any of them dead for their crimes against you … and of course for other things too, but not as much."

His last sentence had a very dark undertone to it, which was absolutely untypical for him to speak like. Hiro suddenly realized that his darker side had finally gained enough control to take over. And it only had took a day. For the first time since he had made up his mind, he was shaking in his resolve. Was this really for the best?

But Zero Two's eyes widened for another reason.

"Do you plan to do all this just because you want them to pay for what they have done to me? What about you? And the wiping of your memories? Your life in slavery, you just talked about …"

He shook his head resolutely.

"No. For all of that I would have them judged and sentenced, just like you said. But I want them dead because of your torture on their command. Nothing more and nothing less. If you don't want that, I …"

"Oh, I want that alright", she finally gave in and showed such a dark face, full to the brim with anger and hatred, he nearly lost his resolve all at once, "I want Papa and his fellow vermin to have the most gruesome death humanly possible."

She took another breath and calmed down a bit, her facial expression smoothing up.

"But I wouldn't go to war over it. Darling, I just yesterday got the official permission to be with you and your squad again. I … I have a somewhat hard time to just say yes to another war, after it feels like I just came home from one", she calmly added, but became more nervous now that she had said something against his plans.

Now it was Hiro's turn to ask a question.

Silently he murmured:

"Would you prefer it to keep our live like it is? Despite knowing all those things and how we are going to die in at least a few years? Please, just say you want it to stay like that and I won't tell anyone in the squad what I learned today. I don't want to endanger everyone. But I will have a hard time coming to peace with that. Nonetheless I'll try if you want that. I would never do such a crazy thing without you by my side."

Zero Two slid down in her chair and covered her face in both palms, while making a frustrated noise.

"I don't want to, but I want to. You understand? I really wouldn't want anything more than bursting through Papa's door and making him pay for everything. But one other thing I want as much as that is my life with you. And doing the former will endanger the latter. I know everything would be better if we tried and succeeded, but who can tell if we both or even one of us will live to see it?", she took her hands out of her face and threw him a miserable look, "I want to be with you, damned! And I don't want to ever, ever wake up knowing that you have been killed and I'm still alive. I want us to be happy together and doing lots of funny things and hugging and kissing and stupid things like that … I don't want us to be …"

She looked like she would start crying at any moment now again and Hiro wasn't all too sure he could keep his tears back for much longer at that rate either, but nothing like that happened, as suddenly a strong fist hammered on the door.

"This is APE Command, Code 008, Hachi. You are under arrest. Open the door immediately."

As none of them had seen that in any way coming, they both stared unbelievingly at the door, which was shortly after being kicked in by Hachi himself, a pistol in one hand, a data pad in the other. In the corridor behind him there were many more soldiers to be seen.

"I repeat, you are hereby under arrest and accused of treason against APE Command. Don't try to resist or we will use deadly force to stop you."

One after the other Hiro and Zero Two stood up and put their hands behind their heads, while making grave faces. This was a turn towards the worst possible outcome and Hiro felt like an absolute idiot for his big speech about rebellion from earlier. He wouldn't rebel against anything if they decided to just execute them on the spot.

* * *

 **And here we are, at the end of another chapter.**

 **Thank you for reading and please do tell me what you think of the story so far. My mein concern, though some of you have told me it's been all fine up until now, is the depiction of Hiro and Zero Two. I still often do find me asking myself if I write them correctly and in-character.**

 **But regardless, the two of them sure have gotten themselves into trouble now. And the big question of the day seems to be: what will Hachi do?**

 **I'm sure we will see about that in the next chapter. See you there fellas!**


	4. Interrogation

**I can't possibly express how good it feels to upload this chapter.**

 **Some of you already know it, but I will explain it once again:**

 **I had finished writing this chapter weeks ago, but I am my worst critic and I didn't like it, so I deleted it completely and began anew. This version of it still has its flaws here and there and I will probably change a few sentences in the future, but overall I think it is finished.**

 **As always, I am very happy that YOU, fellow DitF enthusiast, are here to read my fanfic. Enjoy!**

* * *

Goro had spent the last few hours searching for Hiro, but to no avail. Frustrated he sat at a fallen tree near the pond and looked around. It sure was quiet out here. If he ever would try to hide somewhere to not have to deal with anyone, he would come here, he decided.

But he had no time to stay and admire the view. It was possible that Zero Two had already found Hiro and he didn't want to stay outside the entire day. There would be a meeting with Nana in a few hours where she hopefully would explain something regarding the missing breakfast. He of course understood that the Plantation couldn't function like before anymore, but at least a letter with some friendly excuse would have been nice.

With thoughts like these he trotted back to the boarding house.

And he arrived just in time to hear the sound of something breaking. Probably a vase as it sounded. After that followed a high pitched scream.

"What in the world are you people doing in our home?!"

That sounded like Miku.

Goro worriedly opened the door, just to find himself staring into the muzzle of a submachinegun.

The soldier wielding said gun was turned towards Miku, who had just come out of the bathroom with a vase full of water and some flowers and who had been so startled by the many soldiers in the entrance hall that she dropped it.

But upon hearing the door behind him, the soldier immediately turned towards Goro and the muzzle of the weapon rose a bit, to aim at his face.

"Who are you?", the man asked with in a very unfriendly tone of voice.

Goro hastily showed his bare hands and answered: "Parasite Code 056, Squad 13, Sir!"

The man lowered his gun a bit, but didn't swing it in another direction.

"Well Code 056, maybe you can point us towards Code 016 and Code 002 as they happen to not be in their rooms. Any idea on their whereabouts?"

Goro froze inside. That wasn't good. There were never soldiers in Mistilteinn, weaponized ones much less, and at no single time since they had been stationed here had one asked for a specific Parasite. That all didn't sound good to him.

"Errrm … well … I was looking for them too, Sir. Code 016 wasn't in our room this morning, so I decided to take a look on where he might be. He is one to get in trouble easily, you see, so I thought …"

He was interrupted by Hachi, who came down the stairs and said:

"We're done here men. Escort formation and back to the elevator. If one of them tries to flee on our way down you have my full permission to shoot them on the spot."

To Goros horror they meant no one else than Hiro and Zero Two, who were dragged down the stairs by many more soldiers.

The one right in front of him turned towards him again - his weapon rose a little bit - and said: "We found them, so you don't have to search anymore. You can go back to your room now."

Goro still couldn't find it inside of him to simply obey that order. He was way too confused.

"I … Sir, what exactly …"

The muzzle was way too near to his face again.

"None of your concern. I said move back to your room, Parasite."

The way he said 'Parasite' really wasn't friendly.

To Goro's never ending thankfulness another voice interrupted their conversation.

"It may be none of his concern, but it is most definitely mine", said Ichigo while storming down the stairs on the other side of the entrance hall. Miku nearly threw herself behind her as she past the broken vase. She had never been so thankful to see her in her life.

Without betting an eye, Ichigo marched straight up to Hachi and looked angrily up at his monotone face.

"What is the meaning of this, Overseer?"

Hachi stayed still for a while and gave the men behind him the time to catch up with the prisoners. He then turned towards Ichigo and answered calm and quietly: "I am not here in my role as Overseer, Code 015. In fact, I gave that title to Nana for the next few days. I am here on behalf of APE-Command and try to find out what those two were thinking as they broke into a restricted area and stole military secrets."

Ichigo took a step back as if he had hit her in the face.

With a bewildered look she tried to catch eye contact with either of the two in question, but they both were staring into nothing and just followed their respective guards. They looked like they expected a court martial or worse. And given the claims that might be very well what would happen to them.

"If you excuse me now, Squad Leader, I have work to do", Hachi ended the conversation. He then turned towards Goro and the soldier in front of him and said: "Code 056, do you intend on stopping us or are you just too tired to move? Sergeant, get him out of the way, now."

Goro threw one glance towards Ichigo, who silently gave him the sign to step out of the way, while making a very grim face.

Sighing he blocked the hand of the Sergeant that was reaching out to him and stepped out of the way on his own.

As he reached a distance the soldiers considered safe, they took their prisoners into their middle and moved out of the building and towards the elevator.

Miku, who still were hiding behind Ichigo, was the first to speak again: "What in the world was that? And what did he mean by 'restricted area' and 'military secrets'? They would never do such a thing!"

A second thought crossed Miku's mind a second after.

"Well Zero Two might do such a thing, but Hiro? Maybe she dragged him into this and …"

The looks the two others threw her way were enough.

"… ok, ok … it doesn't matter I guess, as they are both our comrades now, right? So, great leader, what do we do?"

She – and Goro too – looked very curious at Ichigo.

Who in return looked very concerned and shrugged: "I have no idea."

Goro looked after the soldiers, out of the open doors.

"We can't stop them. Neither with arguments nor by force, Papa forbid. We don't have the means to. If they really did what they are accused of … well let's say I hope to ever see them again …"

He was still in shock over the entire situation and couldn't feel anything yet, but he knew that wouldn't last. The others had to feel the same way.

"Anyway", Ichigo had already calmed a little, "Wake up all the others and tell them exactly what happened here. At today's meeting with Nana, I'll inform her of what happened here – as I hope at least she isn't part of this – and ask her if she can do anything for those two. Until then you are back on standby."

Goro nodded and trotted away to the boy's dorm, to inform the others. Ichigo's words had sparked a slight hope in him. Maybe Nana could help them.

Miku – after cleaning up the mess in the entrance hall – did the same thing with nearly the same thoughts in mind. Though she added: _geez, these two always manage to get themselves in trouble …_

Meanwhile Ichigo looked through the windows in the main door and watched the soldiers as they disappeared into the elevator building. She had not half as much hope for their friends as she had inspired in the others. She knew that Hachi had all the power he needed to get rid of those two forever. Or maybe not of Zero Two, but certainly of Hiro.

* * *

Hiro stared at Hachi as he got dragged into the elevator.

Six of the soldiers already stood in there, weapons still pointed at him at all times.

But Hachi didn't seem interested in a staring contest and just had eyes for Zero Two, who - for the second time since they had left the boarding house - went on a rampage.

"Get your damn hand off me you bastard!"

A soldier fell down with a broken nose.

"And stay away from me!"

A second soldier flew a few metres through the air and ended up crashing into the wall behind him.

With a face full of hatred and despair Zero Two turned towards Hachi.

Hachi still simply looked at her with his monotone face.

Two soldiers jumped at her from behind while two others got between her and Hachi, so she tried to claw her way through them, biting, cursing and growling like an wounded animal, while the soldiers from behind tried their best to drag her back out of the elevator.

Hiro took a step back. Not only because he didn't want to stand in her way if she made it through, but because her face reminded him all too well of the incident that had led to the recovery of his memories. He hadn't knew it up until now, but he really hadn't wanted to see her looking that way ever again. The only thing that set his mind at ease for a bit, was the thought that she wasn't mad at him but someone else this time.

Someone else he wasn't all too fond off too, that was.

He looked back at Hachi who had raised his pistol up to the height of Zero Two's face.

Her glowing red eyes didn't even realize the danger she had gotten herself into. Or maybe she simply didn't care at this point. In her blind rage she threw herself on top of the two soldiers in front of her and pulled the two others onto the pile as well.

Hachi's pistol followed her carefully, but it seemed as if he didn't want to risk a shot as he might very well hit one of his own men.

The struggling soldiers had finally gotten a hold of Zero Two's limbs and brought her more and more under their control with every passing second.

Hiro had seen enough to know that they probably would inject her something now to keep her unconscious. He would not stand idly by as that happened.

While everyone was watching the fight on the ground, Hiro had steadily retreated back to the wall of the elevator and stood right beside a soldier who still stared at his struggling comrades. His pistol holster was open, so that if he should lose his gun, he could draw the pistol quicker.

Hiro's hands slowly grabbed the weapon.

Nearly immediately the soldier recognized something was wrong and turned towards him.

Hiro pulled the weapon out, threw the switch up to unlock the gun and pointed it straight at Hachi.

The soldier let out a warning shout and pointed his weapon right at Hiro's face.

Hachi looked over and found himself staring into the pistols muzzle.

Relatively quick, but surprisingly long in the case of Hachi, he showed a pained face and his left eye even twitched slightly, before he regained his composure and shouted: "Cut it out!"

Everyone now watched at him and realized what had happened.

Zero Two nearly instantly calmed down and looked with growing fear at her Darling and his slightly shaking hand with the weapon.

Her eyes screamed at him.

 _Please don't kill him, please don't kill him, please don't kill him!_

But whether she was pleading at Hiro or at Hachi she couldn't tell.

Either way the result would be a shoot-out with many dead people.

But Hiro didn't even look her way, so he completely missed that.

He stared firmly at Hachi and slowly began to speak:

"Overseer … if you don't make them let go of her right about now, I promise I will put a bullet in your skull, no matter the consequences. I am not one to be reasoned with today."

Hachi just stared back for a while.

It felt like the time within the room was moving in slow motion, the air felt so heavy under the intensity of the situation that it was nearly tangible. The soldiers all moved their weapons in position, not quickly, but menacingly slow instead, while they all just waited for the order to riddle Hiro with holes.

The moment went on for a minute, before Hachi decided to slowly lower his weapon.

"Alright", he nodded briefly, "Is that all?"

Hiro – surprised he actually had managed to do something like this – quickly replied:

"Your men will let go of her, let her stand and won't do anything to her like injections or anything like that, you hear me? You will let her come over to me and I will give you back the weapon and obey. I am not so stupid to actually believe you would consider to let us go."

Hachi nodded.

"Alright. But if she goes on another rampage against my men, no matter for what reason, I will put her down. Either to sleep or into the grave. Are we clear on that, Code 016?"

Even though Hachi showed no emotion, his tone of voice had gotten a whole tone darker.

Hiro had to swallow hard, before he finally gave in.

Now, for the first time, he looked Zero Two in her eyes.

She was just lying on the ground, her limbs still pinned down, and looked up to him, her face full of sweat, blood and tears. Her face said more than any word could have, as she understood what he had done for her sake.

Slowly the soldiers got up and pulled Zero Two up with them.

Then, with a rest of intact pride, she pushed the soldiers in front of her away and marched over to her Darling's side.

Hiro in return handed the man beside him back his weapon.

The soldier took it with a muttered curse, returned it back to his holster and the entire situation seemed cleared.

While the soldiers dragged in their wounded and unconscious comrades, Hiro turned towards Zero Two, hugged her tightly and whispered as quiet as humanly possible:

"Did you manage to get rid of it?"

She simply nodded, still a little bit moved by what he had done to save her.

"You are an idiot", she muttered grinning as she breathed a kiss on his cheek.

Hiro returned the grin a bit weaker, than turned back towards Hachi as everyone was finally within the elevator and they began to move downwards.

The further way to their prison cells was a rather uneventful march over empty corridors and through lesser illuminated hallways. That was not because the prison tract was a dark and ugly place deep underground, but because it was one of those areas that had been hit by the giant hand yesterday and thus was partly damaged. The cell block on the other hand was not. And soon after their arrival, Hiro and Zero Two found themselves in two separated cells, each equipped with only a small bed, a chair and a small table.

It wasn't long after Hiro had been tossed into his cell, that he could hear another door shut with the same metallic sound like the one he himself was locked behind, so he figured that Zero Two must be imprisoned somewhere close by.

He threw himself on his bed, realized that he shouldn't have as it was hard as stone, and rolled over, facing the wall. He stayed like that for a good hour, in which he finally managed to calm down his racing heart and mind.

The bitter truth of his world had already been replaced by the way worse reality he found himself in now. Hiro had always been one to explore and ask things, where other children had been more obedient and introverted. For the first time he asked himself if that was the reason he had gotten himself in so much trouble over the years. Maybe it would be safer for the rest of the squad, now that he was as good as gone.

He hit his head hard against the wall after realizing what he just had thought.

His friends would die if he didn't find a way to save them fast. That was undeniable. How could he think they would be better off as they are now?

Frustrated Hiro sat up against the wall and wrapped his arms around his legs, his head rested upon his knees.

Why had his life had to turn such a bitter way? Couldn't it have stayed as it were?

 _No, you fool. Because you had to look into those files to justify your anger. And look where it has taken you_ , his darker side told him mockingly.

Hiro shook his head. That wasn't helpful, if true though.

 _Ok, enough of that_ , he told himself, _I have to find a way to not get killed or memory wiped._

His face became worried and he looked over his shoulder against the wall.

 _And to make sure you are safe as well_ , he added.

* * *

Over at Zero Two's cell, she had already made herself at home. This wasn't the first prison she saw from within and if everything went better than the worst case scenario, it would probably not be her last one either.

She sat on the table, her feet laying over one another on the chairs lean.

It was not a very comfortable position as it started to hurt her legs after a while, but it was the most rebellious thing she could think of, so she ignored the pain. Not that it served any valid point either way … the first thing she had done while being in here had been to block the door and its window with the mattress of her bed. So no one would see her sitting on the table.

Zero Two then proceeded to take off her uniform. There was nothing more hilarious than the look on the face of prison staff people, after they had gotten through the mattress barrier, just to be called filthy perverts and being thrown at with clothing and other things.

After her preparations were complete she finally reached a state of calmness she usually only reached when her Darling was with her.

She looked against the wall that separated them from another. She had seen how they had locked him in just behind the next cell door. With her nails she scratched on the wall on instinct. It was way too thick as that she could have hoped to breach it. The door was a massive one too, made out of metal and locked with the same kind of magnet lock like the doors of the archive. No way, she could even hope to damage that.

Now the only thing left to do was to wait. She knew that they would come eventually. Sometimes they brought skilled torturers, sometimes weird machinery and sometimes only the doctor would stroll in and get her out. But never before had she been imprisoned for something like this. So maybe it would be different today. The only thing she knew for certain was that she would not tell them a single thing. If they searched her, they would find nothing. Her data stick lay all the way down in the lift shaft, where she had thrown it in the commotion of the fight earlier.

Nothing they could say would convince her to talk about something she or her Darling had done. She had also her status as Special Forces pilot going for her, which granted her a special treatment on behalf of all military personal. They could not simply question, torture or kill her without first getting in contact with the seven sages themselves. Only they could decide on the fate of one of their chosen ones.

Zero Two never had given a damn about her status, as she knew best how her abilities stood far above those of other parasites, but in situation like those, she didn't mind it at all.

Suddenly a thought crossed her mind and her feeling of untouchability crumbled a bit. There was indeed one possibility this time, how they could make her spill out everything they had done and everything else they wanted to hear. If they dragged her Darling in here and questioned her while pointing a gun to his head.

She shook her head a little bit and got rid of that thought. Not even APE could sink so low, she thought, to make herself feel more confident. But it didn't quite work, as the nervousness now stayed with her.

Irritated she eventually got up from the table to get some blood into her hurting legs and began to march in a circle through her cell. This was also different from all her earlier imprisonments. Never before had she actually gotten herself in some kind of emotional distress over her being in a cell. Or rather: someone else being in a cell.

Suddenly – with a loud metallic sound – the magnet lock opened and the door to her cell moved inwards and threw the mattress to the ground in the process.

Zero Two, who had walked around in her cell for minutes and who's uniform still lay upon the table, felt pretty stupid all of a sudden and sat down on her bed to not look like the biggest idiot.

Hachi stood in the open door, two soldiers by his side, and walked in over the mattress. The soldiers stayed on the other side and closed it behind him. With another loud metallic sound the lock snapped back in place.

Hachi walked straight over to the table, threw the uniform over to Zero Two and sat down on the chair, while taking a few things out of his pocket and displaying them on the table.

Zero Two just glared at him and got back into her uniform.

"Are you feeling too warm in here?", was the first remark Hachi made, while placing another thing on the table, that she couldn't make out from her position on the bed.

She simply huffed and stood up to come over to him, but immediately Hachi drew his pistol and pointed it at her.

"You stay were you are. Come one step closer and I shoot you were you stand."

She froze and raised an eyebrow.

"That's pretty straightforward, coming from you. Are you afraid of me?"

He now turned towards her, his face monotone as ever, and said:

"On the way down here you gave me no reason to assume that I could reason with you, so why do you thing I would begin doing it now?"

He paused and one of his eyes twitched at little.

"But no. I am not afraid of you. I just want this to go like I want it to and without you causing any more trouble for me. Understood? Then sit down."

His weapon was still pointed at her face.

Zero Two inspected his face carefully, but to no avail. He wouldn't show any more emotion than that.

She bit on her lower lip, thought for a second and then shrugged.

"I would probably be on your throat before you could even pull the trigger. Besides, your superiors would lynch you for killing me. I am still part of the Special Forces, you kno…"

A loud bang erupted from Hachi's pistol as a single bullet flew only a few centimeters away from Zero Two's head against the wall of the cell, ricocheted against the metal door and came to a halt on the ground.

All of that happened in a single second, so none of them had time to react until it was all over.

Zero Two let out a sharp hiss and pinched her eyes.

"I don't fool around like you children, Code 002. We both now know that I would really shoot you down if you would try something. I wasn't all too sure until now, but now I am. Are you?"

Hesitantly she dropped back onto the bed, still looking at Hachi like she wanted to tear him apart right about now.

The pistol stayed pointed at her face at all times.

"Very good. We will now began this questioning. I will ask you questions and you will answer them. You may argue that I have no right to question you like that, as you are part of the Special Forces and I am not, but right now I have the weapon and you do not. And that is all you have to know about this rather unique questioning you find yourself in."

Zero Two's eyebrows raised up as she finally understood that they had really fucked up with what they had done. Hachi wasn't after them because of his allegiance to APE. He wanted something. And that would probably be at least as illegal as what they had done. It also meant that Hachi could simply shoot her, talk it off as self-defense and no one would know what happened.

She had to chuckle. More out of gallows humor than real amusement, but still.

"I understand", was all she answered him with a knowing look.

Hachi nodded.

"I'm glad you do. I will begin now. You broke into the military archive of plantation 13. Do you want to deny that?"

Zero Two thought for a second.

"I know you said that you would ask and I just answer … but do you allow me a question in return without blowing my head off?"

He rolled his eyes – the first visible reaction she got out of him – and gave her a signal to go on.

"Is this questioning being recorded?"

He was shortly taken aback, but then realized what she had in mind and his face turned somewhat sour without changing at all. It was just that he looked at her differently than before.

"No, it is obviously not. And no, I won't accept any deals with you. I have to openly punish you for what you did. No possibility goes around that fact. Nor will you have the chance to blackmail me for my personal goals, I will make sure of that. Now answer my question."

Zero Two's face turned sour in return, as she laid down on her bed, the hands folded behind her head, and replied:

"I don't need to confess anything to you. First off, you know the answer. Second, you don't have any means to make me talk, as you just openly stated to punish me nonetheless and without granting any kind of reward in return. So tell me, why the hell should I answer you?"

Hachi stayed still. He stayed indeed so quiet that she took a peek at him to confirm he was still there. He just stared at her. For a minute or so. Then, suddenly, he stood up. He lowered his pistol, checked the magazine and then went over towards the door.

Zero Two just looked after him, unbelieving of what she saw.

"Hey, you're just going to stroll off or what?"

The door opened up and he stepped outside, but turned towards her for a last time.

"You won't talk, I get that. I wanted to speak to you first, because you are used to violent environments and imprisonment. So I figured you would be more likely to respond to my questions without the need to demonstrate force on you to make you talk. That is – obviously – not the case, so you just made me turn towards Code 016 instead. I'm sorry. I promise I will try to hold back if he should proof to be as stubborn as you."

Her eye twitched, pain shot threw her head.

The door began to close again.

She snapped.

Zero Two was on her feet the second he stopped talking. She arrived at the door the second it closed and threw herself against the window with every bit of muscle she could muster, a pained scream like that of a wounded animal on her lips.

The window cracked. But it didn't shatter.

Leaving a bloody trail, she slid down the door and came to a comatose halt.

 _I'm sorry Darling. I didn't meant to …_

* * *

Hiro had heard the gunshot earlier and he knew exactly where it had come from. At first, he had panicked like crazy, but since then had passed half an hour and his beating heart had calmed down.

The door to Zero Two's cell had opened and closed too quickly, he thought. No way they could have dragged … a corpse … through it so fast. So either she was still alive or they had let her dead body lie in her cell.

Upon that thought his heart began to beat faster again.

 _That's not true, she wouldn't just die like that. I would have heard it if they killed her. She would have fought like crazy. I would have felt if …_

The door to his cell began to open.

With one of his legs nervously hammering on the ground, his face full of fear and with a crazily beating heart, he looked at Hachi, as he came marching in.

He directly went over to the chair, sat down and began to unpack a few things.

The door closed.

Hiro looked over at the table but couldn't make out what Hachi was putting there.

Slowly Hiro came to his legs and took a few steps towards him.

Hachi didn't stop him, but simply said: "So … Code 016. I am here to …"

Then he stopped suddenly as he felt the strong grip of a hand on his right shoulder. A hastily look towards his pistol - which was out of his reach right now – later his eyes met Hiro's. There was some kind of murderous intent in those eyes. Hachi had to gulp a little upon realizing that he underestimated the Parasite. But none of his evaluations had let him think of Hiro as a threat at all. This was so out of line, it was downright scary. But that also applied to the reason of Hiro being in this cell.

They stared at each other for a second while those thoughts jumped through Hachi's mind.

Hiro's grip around Hachi's shoulder tightened.

"What have you done to her?"

The question was plain and simple. Hiro didn't shout, nor did he whisper. He asked straight away like any other question in his life. But the unhidden wavering of his voice was a clear indicator of all the suppressed emotion behind that seemingly lighthearted question.

In this one heartbeat Hachi had no doubt that Hiro would try to kill him with his bare hands if he were to say something wrong. He may have knew it before Hiro himself.

Slowly Hachi rose his hands into the air.

"I understand that you are in an emotional turmoil right now, Code 016. I swear that neither I nor any other person has done any harm to Code 002 …"

The grip around his shoulder got less painful.

Suddenly the door opened up and the two soldiers outside pointed their weapons at Hiro as they noticed what was going on inside the cell.

"Back off! On the ground!", one of them yelled.

Hiro gave them a quick look and let go of Hachi, then got on the ground as told.

Quickly one of the men rushed over to Hachi and the other handcuffed Hiro again. This time with the hands on his back.

Hachi sent them out right afterwards.

As soon as the door closed he resumed: "As I was saying … Code 002 was not harmed in any way by us. Yet she may have inflicted some harm upon herself by attempting to breach the door with her body alone. I can't guaranty her wellbeing after seeing that. I don't say that to anger you, just to tell you the truth. Are you now willing to answer my questions?"

Hiro sent him a glare from the ground.

"Do you intend to mention the gunshot?"

"Oh, that, right … We got in a somewhat heated argument and I had to demonstrate something. I missed her of course. It was just a show of force. Are you being satisfied now?"

Hiro got on his knees and back to his feet from there, before letting himself sink on his bed.

"Alright. I believe you Hachi. You in person never gave me a reason not to."

Hachi rose an eyebrow.

"That is … good to hear. Then I won't lie to you now either. You are in very big trouble, Code 016. What you did was no minor rule breaking, but military sabotage. Care to explain that?"

Hiro just sat at his bed – his leg hammering on the ground again – and tried to make up something logical. The problem was … there was no logical reason he could come up with, other than the truth.

He eventually sighed and asked: "How much do you know about my personal history Hachi? Seriously?"

Hachi was shortly taken aback by that question, but collected himself quickly and opened up his copy of Hiro's file.

"Well, according to my personal experience, gathered while working with you and your Squad, you are a very eager and passionate Parasite, with few to none other in the squad coming close to your skill. Yet, that testimony may be falsified by you riding with Code 002 and in Strelizia. Nonetheless, you never gave me any reason to doubt your fighting spirit or even your loyalty."

Hachi skimmed over the entire file to be sure.

"And neither does the data I got on you. You are very curious and somehow convinced the caretakers at the garden that naming yourself and others was okay. But that is how far …"

Hiro let out an unintended chuckle.

Hachi looked at him, surprised by that reaction.

Hiro was consistently shaking his head in disbelief, while grinning joylessly.

"If that truly is, what is written in there, than you are being fooled just as I was. And that is even sadder than everything I already knew. Because it means that not even the Parasites that escape this deathtrap are being entrusted with more knowledge.

Hachi slowly got the feeling that he wasn't the one interrogating anymore.

"Well … you have to explain that a little more, I'm afraid. I don't know what you are talking about …"

Yet some of Hiro's words had indeed triggered some thoughts of his own to resurface. Especially the mentioning of being fooled and the word deathtrap came close to some thoughts of his own, back when he used to actively think about the state of his mind and his place in the world. Days long gone now, until the current case had been brought before him.

Hachi shook his head and concentrated back on Hiro.

"You know … I have the feeling we really should change the topic. This doesn't lead anywhere. What am I being accused of, again?"

Now Hachi was completely thrown off.

"Well … of high treason and sabotage … basically."

"Alright. And what would be the appropriate sentence for these crimes?"

Hachi lowered his data pad and looked Hiro straight in the eyes.

"Death."

Hiro simply nodded. He was kind of relieved to have finally heard it.

"Then why are we talking? Just shoot me and get it over with. The reasons are pointless if you kill me anyway. And … I know she will hate me for even trying to do this, but … please spare her. I will beg on my knees if you want me to. But please, don't kill her for something I suggested and mainly carried out myself. She was just helping me because of her feelings …"

Hachi made a placatory gesture with his hands, as Hiro's emotions finally welled up and drove him to sob a little.

"It's ok, we can still talk this over. You can lower the weight of your crime if you confess, help us clear everything up and help me to get that data back, that you have stolen. Then I may find a way for you to live. And have no fear … the higher ups would never decide to terminate Zero Two. They need her way to much for that to happen."

The way Hachi now talked nearly sounded fatherly. He spoke scolding, yet relieved Hiro from his worst thoughts.

Hiro was shortly taken aback by that feeling.

"Well …", he began, but then realized that he had seriously been only a few words apart from telling Hachi everything. Irritated he shook his head.

"No, I can't. You may don't understand it, but they will shoot me even if I tell you everything. I'm sorry Hachi, just get it over with, please."

But Hachi just made a stern face. Kind of as if he just had an epiphany about something.

"I think I begin to get it. Alright. I'm changing the topic. Tell me what I want to know, then we can talk about your execution."

Hiro flinched, but nodded.

"Were is the second data stick?"

Hachi hold up the one he had picked up at the table in the library, together with Naomi's wristband. He raised an eyebrow again.

"Very clever, I must say. To use someone else's wristband for that. An idea of your own or your girlfriends?"

"My own", Hiro muttered, "The second stick is well hidden. I would exchange it against my life, but that is pointless even if I could get you to accept that. Only Zero Two can tell you more. You should talk to her about it."

Hachi let his head sink on his breast for a second, before getting his posture back up.

"That is not especially helpful. Talking to Zero Two is pointless. She will just try to rip me apart again."

"Then why don't you be happy with what you got? It can't be so urgent to risk your death over it now, can it?", Hiro asked shrugging.

Instead of an answer, Hiro got the scariest look Hachi had ever shown him.

"That is out of the question", Hachi growled, "I need that second stick way more than this damned thing!"

He threw the stick in his hand back on the table.

And suddenly Hiro had an epiphany too.

"You don't want the stick … you want something that's saved on it …"

"Quiet. That is none of your concern. Just tell me …", Hachi got up, his eyebrows drawn together, his entire face an emotional mess of rage and helplessness, and came towards Hiro, "… where I can find that damn data! Afterwards I can do anything … let you see Zero Two one last time, shoot you on the spot, or even talk to APE about you and try to convince them to let you live … but first you tell me the location of that stick!"

He now stood right in front of Hiro, like a menacingly looming tower.

Hiro was completely startled by all of this.

"Well, I … I could … but …"

Hachi draw his pistol.

"No more buts. You managed to get me emotional, so here we are. I will not shoot you in your head or breast, but I assume you wouldn't like a few shots to your legs either, am I right?"

The weapon now was pointed straight at his knees.

Hiro gulped. And broke.

 _What is it even worth being tortured over at this point?_ , he thought to himself, _They won't hurt Zero Two and give me a painless death. That's a better ending than I could have wished for. And yet, still … I would prefer seemingly everything over that …_

"Alright."

Hachi's face evened up a bit.

"Alright?"

Hiro nodded slowly.

"It is somewhere inside the main elevators shaft. Zero Two dropped it down there while your men were busy holding her down. I'm sorry, but you will have to search down there."

The anger shortly flushed back over Hachi's face, but he got himself back under control, his face changed back to his usual monotone self and he nodded.

"I will check that. Thoroughly. If I shouldn't have found it afterwards I would be very displeased, as you can probably imagine. I'll be off now. I have to search a few hundred floors of elevator shaft, if the stick didn't miraculously fell down to the very bottom. Until then, rest a bit."

And with that Hachi turned around, swiped the data stick, the wristband and his pistol back into his pockets and holster and marched out of the cell.

Afterwards the guards came back in to take Hiro's handcuffs off.

After they were gone as well and the door closed with its typically metallic sound, Hiro let himself fell backwards upon his bed.

 _Was that the best I could achieve? To send him searching and prolong my life that way?_

Sighing he got back on his feet and started to walk around in his cell.

 _I don't want to die. But I would prefer it over losing her for good this time. On the other hand, she would be devastated either way. As crazy as it sounds, I am her entire reason to live right now and have been it unknowingly for ages. I could never hurt her that much._

He shook his head. It was out of the question that he would get punished severely for what he did. Only one very small possibility remained in the backside of his mind, born from sheer hope after realizing something while he spoke to Hachi.

It was a silly, if not crazy, plan. But maybe … maybe it could work. With a lot of luck.

Hiro looked towards the wall that separated him from Zero Two.

 _I'll try anything I can to get back to you. Even if all odds are turned against us._

* * *

Hachi was getting more and more nervous by the minute.

This entire scenario of him imprisoning those two and keeping it a secret from the entirety of APE was madness.

Nana could be walzing into the prison any second now, maybe directly followed by the Doctor or worse.

And then it would be a matter of heartbeats before he would find himself in one of those cells as well.

 _First my best chance doesn't talk to me, then the other sends me off on to a damned treasure hunt and now I am stuck with waiting for the damn drones to find the thing in time. Why couldn't have at least one thing be in my favor?_

He looked over towards the soldiers, who were guarding the two cells. Any of them could already be suspicious of what they were doing. Maybe they had already called for the Doctor. He trusted his face not to let any of them read his thoughts, but still. If only his hands and feet could stay still for one second. He must look like the embodiment of tension to them.

Then, half an hour later, one of the drones returned with the stick.

Hachi's heart jumped up and down upon holding it finally in his hand.

He looked over towards the entrance to the prison tract as if he just waited to get caught by someone. But nothing happened.

With a nervous twitching of his mouth, that nearly resembled a smile, he turned towards one of the empty offices of the prison and closed the door behind him. He then dragged a chair into one corner of the room, so that if the door suddenly were to open, he would longer be out of sight.

Twitching with uncertainty and nervousness, Hachi connected to the stick and opened up the file tree.

* * *

 **Phew, I have done it again. Another chapter that feels like I'm dragging this story into eternity.**

 **But I really wanted to tell how desperate all the main characters are becoming right now, soooo ... I'm sorry.**

 **The next chapter will see the ending of this first story arc, I promise!**

 **I am as always really happy to hear your thoughts on the story and hope to see you soon, at the first arcs finale!**


End file.
